


Rough Around the Edges

by WickedTruthVirtuousLies



Category: Naruto
Genre: Dai-nana-han | Team 7 (Naruto) Feels, Dai-nana-han | Team 7 (Naruto)-centric, Families of Choice, Multi, Sakura is a Senju
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-24
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-19 15:28:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 29,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9447584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WickedTruthVirtuousLies/pseuds/WickedTruthVirtuousLies
Summary: A story in which the members of Team 7 are the most dysfunctional group of orphans Iruka has ever laid eyes on and he can't help but to wonder why the Sandaime thought it was a good idea to throw together the daughter of a traitor, the only survivor of a massacre, and the host of the Kyuubi. Not to mention the fact that they are the last of the Senju, Uchiha, and Uzumaki respectively and anyone who had ever picked up a history book knew what happened when the members of said clans were in the same vicinity.AU. Slight crack.





	1. Iruka's Doubt: Introductions

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first story that I've posted on this sight. Hope you all enjoy -WTVL

I do not own Naruto. Naruto is the property of Masashi Kishimoto and is not my intellectual property. There is no financial gain made from this nor will any be sought. This is for entertainment purposes only – WTVL

A story in which the members of Team 7 are the most dysfunctional group of orphans that Iruka has ever laid eyes on and he can’t help but to wonder why the Sandaime thought it was a good idea to throw together the daughter of a traitor, the only survivor of a massacre, and the host of the Kyuubi. Not to mention the fact that they were the last of the Senju, Uchiha, and Uzumaki respectively and anyone who had ever picked up a history book knew what happened when members of said clans were in the same vicinity.

oOo

Iruka had formally pledged his loyalty to Konohagakure on the day he graduated the Academy and received his hitai-ate. An eleven-year-old genin angst ridden by the memories of a mother and a father that he no longer had: a troubled young man who had earned himself a reputation as a prankster amongst the civilians and shinobi alike. A lost boy who wasn’t an orphan (and he wasn’t – not really – because he still remembered the sights and the sounds and the smells of home) yet had no family.

And although he had passed all the tests and rehearsed the oath that swore his fealty to the Village Hidden in the Leaves, Iruka hadn’t truly started to comprehend the Will of Fire until the Third Hokage had taken him under his wing. It was because of Hiruzen Sarutobi and his teachings that Iruka had traded in his whetstone and kunai for a chalkboard and textbooks. Iruka had become a teacher at the Academy because he had dreamed of passing on the Will of Fire to the next generation of Konohagakure shinobi using the same lessons that he himself had received from the Sandaime.

And now he was torn.

Because for as much as he respected and cared for Sarutobi-sama (both as a shinobi towards his Hokage but also as a young man towards a father figure), Iruka had to wonder if the God of Shinobi was truly in his right mind.  


Laid out on the table before him were the files for the latest batch of Academy graduates as well as genin team assignments. Various statistics, test scores, physical and psychological evaluations, along with class rankings of individual students coming together in a dizzying algorithm that somehow incorporated different clan kekkai-genkai and managed to produce well balanced three man squads.

Many of the selections made more than just sense and Iruka had always been slightly awed at how the Hokage could pick thru files of students – whom he had had little to no interaction with – and piece them together like a three-part puzzle so seamlessly that it was hard to believe that the students hadn’t been trained specifically to be part of the same team to begin with.

More than once during the process over the years, Iruka had glanced towards the Sandaime’s looking glass and had wondered if the old man was truly picking the teams or if he was somehow divining the information.

Now though…

Staring down at the thickest folder of them all, Iruka was having a hard time agreeing with the Sandaime’s choice of team placement for the first time.

Ever.

Letting out a heavy sigh, the young chunin pinched the bridge of his nose above his scar, and flipped open the file labelled only as ‘7’ to review the information once more.

Not that it would change anything.

He had read through every piece of paper contained within said folder so many times now that he could probably recite it verbatim and backwards. He would dream about what meager words there were in his sleep and conjure up nightmares about the pieces that had been blacked out and marked as ‘confidential’. Most importantly, however, Iruka had spent every day of the last seven years teaching and interacting with the three genin students and he knew them all. Probably better than they knew themselves.

The next generation of Team Seven was being made up of the most dysfunctional group of orphans that Iruka had ever laid eyes on and he couldn’t help but to wonder why the Sandaime thought that it was a good idea to throw together the daughter of a traitor, the only survivor of a clan massacre, and the host of the Kyuubi. Not to mention the fact that they were the last of the Senju, Uchiha, and Uzumaki respectively and anyone who had ever picked up a history book knew what happened when the members of said clans were in the same vicinity of one another.

The smell of sweet tobacco permeated the air and Iruka was dragged away from his thoughts. Cutting a sideways glance towards the Sandaime – decked out in the formal garb of the Hokage and with a long reed pipe hanging between two calloused fingers – Iruka sighed once more and moved on to the next folder.

It was true that he had his doubts, but Hiruzen Sarutobi hadn’t gained titles like ‘God of Shinobi’ and ‘Professor’ by making simple mistakes of any kind. Iruka had to admit that – if he looked past the fact that Team Seven was a walking catastrophe – there was potential there. Gritty and raw and completely untrained, but potential none the less.  


If the fact that Kakashi Hatake was the assigned jounin instructor of Team Seven – a man who had yet to pass a single team – brought some sort of comfort to Iruka, well –

The chunin refused to feel even the least bit guilty for hoping that the three failed spectacularly.

 

oOo

Sakura Senju was – for lack of a better word – bored.

Another chorus of giggles erupted from the front of the classroom and Sakura tacked on ‘irritated’ as well. Slumping forward in her seat, head now pillowed on her crossed arms and small wisps of petal pink hair frizzing out slightly, Sakura turned her green eyes towards the window and stared out at the clouds.  
For seven years she had shared desk space with the Nara heir – Shikamaru – and while Sakura couldn’t say that they were necessarily friends, an easy comradery had built between them. Sakura was not nearly as obsessed with cloud watching as the young shadow user, but she did admit that there was something calming about sending her thoughts off with the sluggishly moving collections of moisture up in the sky.

That and cloud watching had the added benefit of separating her from her peers – if only for a little bit – and Sakura would take whatever help in that department that she could get.

Ami and her horde of inept wannabe kunoichi followers, the self-proclaimed ‘Sasuke Uchiha Fan Club’, had been the bane of Sakura’s Academy existence for as long as the pink haired girl could remember. The first couple of months it had been nothing more than verbal taunts about her too big forehead and freak coloring. Even at the age of five Sakura had been able to write off that type of bullying as nothing more than a group of insecure girls who validated themselves by putting others down. Having the worst of her physical attributes pointed out and picked at had hurt – of course it had – but Sakura could have handled it.

About halfway through the first year though, everything had changed. Almost overnight the truth of Sakura Senju’s parentage had spread throughout the village and life afterwards had become increasingly hard. In Ami’s eye’s she had transformed from ‘forehead girl’ and ‘freak’ into ‘Senju bastard’ and ‘traitor’.

What hurt the most about all of that was the fact that the hatred that Sakura saw in the eyes of the children at the Academy was reflected in the eyes of the adults that she passed in the streets as well: shinobi and civilian alike.  


And it wasn’t fair – not really – that she should be judged by others because some man that she had never even met (a father that she never even knew) happened to be the Senju traitor of Konohagakure.

Sakura had cast a chakra net over the classroom as soon as she had arrived. Not exactly a genin level jutsu – true – but if the elders and the Hokage were going to practically let her have free reign over the previously abandoned Senju compound, she was going to be damned if she didn’t use it to her full advantage. There were literally hundreds of tomes within the walls of her clan house that just begged to be read.

Because of the chakra net, Sakura was immediately aware when Kiba Inuzuka entered the room and made a bee-line for her desk. He had obviously been trying to sneak up on her – muffling his footsteps as best he could and limiting his body movements so as to escape peripheral detection – and Sakura felt a small bit of pride at the shocked expression on his face when she whipped her head around and levelled her narrow-eyed gaze on him just as he was about to slam a small scroll on her desk in an attempt to startle her.

Ignoring his slack jawed stare and his trembling form, Sakura snatched the scroll out of his now loosened grip and reviewed its contents. Inside were the basics of a form of taijutsu that combined the techniques of both the Dog Fist and the Drunken Monkey, a form that Sakura had seen Kiba use a couple of times during class spars (although sloppily).

When young genin graduated the Academy their chakra coils were still developing and therefore many of them were unable to perform any jutsu outside of the basic three. Sakura knew that she had more chakra than any of the other kunoichi in her class: she could perform the basic three over and over and over again without feeling the drain, but that didn’t mean that she was willing to risk chakra exhaustion – which could result in death – trying to execute jutsus that she had only ever read about but had no formal training in. Especially since she had no one who could supervise her.

It didn’t matter the number of scrolls and techniques that were hidden within the Senju library if she didn’t feel comfortable practicing the techniques alone. Sakura had learned what jutsu she could (a very limited amount) and had focused instead on taijutsu. Which had led to her trying to frantically memorize Kiba’s scroll while maintaining a casual air.

The scraping of a chair against the wooden floor snapped Sakura’s attention back towards Kiba and he gave a sheepish smile before plopping down right in front of her desk. His canine companion – Akamaru – was perched on his head and the both of them were giving her a considering look.

“Ya can keep the scroll, ya know. Long enough to bring it home and copy it, if ya wanna, Sakura.” His brown eyes had left her face when he had uttered her name, sans honorific, and were now staring at the desk positioned between their bodies like it held the secrets of life and death and everything in between.

Sakura was shocked, honestly. Because for as long as they had been classmates, Kiba had never – not once – called her anything other than ‘Senju’ and even then it had been with a mocking salute.

He had gone out of his way – as many others had – to avoid any interaction with her. That had only changed recently when the rambunctious dog-nin had discovered that Sakura might know some people who knew some people that would allow him into The Pit.

It was true, she had (not that she was proud of it or anything).

The Pit was an underground fight club located in the heart of the red-light district that Sakura had the need to visit on occasion. Surrounded by gambling halls and brothels, getting access to The Pit was determined less by your skill and more by the money you were willing to throw down and the people you knew. Most of the participants were genin drop-outs or civilian mercenaries and while Sakura had never heard of anybody dying there, the competition often fought dirty and bloody despite the strict rules that Jiro-san – the proprietor – enforced.

She had never asked why Kiba felt the need to visit such a place and he never asked how she knew so many people who did business in the seedier parts of Konohagakure. The deal had been for Sakura to get him access into The Pit for one night only and for him to lift the taijutsu scroll form his clan compound for one day only.

So why the change?

Kiba must have noticed the minute furrow of her pink brows or the question in her green eyes because he flushed before he looked away and mumbled something that sounded like ‘my ma found out’. Sakura’s heart stopped and she felt the blood drain from her face.

She was D.E.A.D. If the Inuzuka matriarch knew that she had snuck her son into such a place, she was done for. Absolutely and completely done for.

The scroll slipped out from between her hands and clattered on the desk but she could barely hear the clack clack clack as it settled over the roaring in her ears. Akamaru let out a muffled yip and jumped from his designated spot amongst Kiba’s wild brown hair and landed on the desk. The canine sniffled hesitantly at her hands before he whimpered and began licking her fingers earnestly.

Having guessed correctly what had caused his partner in crime to clam up so quickly, Kiba leaned forward and started to talk in a rushed whisper so quiet that the other kids in the class wouldn’t be able to hear.

“No. Listen, Sakura. It’s okay. Really. Ya see, the only reason why I wanted to get into The Pit was because I had a bet with an older cousin: he’s always running off to that place and he bet me that I wouldn’t be able to get in and that even if I did, that I wouldn’t be able to win a fight. Well,” at this point Kiba rocked back in his chair and pointed his thumb at his puffed-out chest. “I did, ya see. Wiped the floor with his smug mug. Unfortunately… Well. He told my uncle who told my ma and well…”

What? Was the only thing that Sakura could think as she blinked rapidly at Kiba, watching Akamaru burrow back into his master’s coat through the shutter of her opening and closing lids.

“I guess my ma and Jiro-san go way back, ya see. I didn’t know, honest! And then, well…” The red dusting along his cheek bones was back, highlighting the Inuzuka tattoos that adorned his face and the dark bruising around one eye that she had just now noticed. “She found out that you put m-money on my fight. Which ya didn’t tell me, ya know!” The last of his statement was delivered with a lot of accusing finger pointing and stink-eye glaring but Sakura was too dumbfounded to respond.

Of course she had put money on his fight. With all of the strings she had had to pull in order to just get him in, it would have been suspicious had she not.

“Anyways. She found out about our deal and said that ya could borrow the scroll for as long as ya needed to. It doesn’t hold any clan secrets, ya know, so it’s okay. She just asked that when ya return it ya bring it by the compound yer’self…” Kiba was looking at her with a question in his eyes but Sakura was saved from replying when Iruka-sensei entered the classroom and ordered everyone to find their seats.

Kiba shot her one more glance before he turned around to face the front of the classroom and Sakura was just barely able to slip the scroll into her hip pouch before Shikamaru mumbled something that sounded like ‘troublesome fan-girls’ and melted into the chair next to her.

 

oOo

Naruto Uzumaki was having a ‘Bad Week’.

To be honest, he had had plenty of ‘Bad Weeks’ in his twelve years of life but this one… This one was B.A.D.  


It had started the day that he had been walking back home from the Academy – nose buried in a scroll that Hokage-jiji had let him borrow – and had been greeted at the Uzumaki compound entrance by a man (woman?) dressed all in black and wearing a porceline bird mask. Naruto had seen this particular Anbu on a number of occasions during his weekly visits to the Hokage Tower and so hadn’t been startled overly at his (her?) appearance – per se – but the fact that he had a fricken’ Anbu operative waiting for him.

At the entrance of his home. After school. What the heck?

After that it had been whirlwind after whirlwind of disaster.

The Anbu had whisked him away straight to Jiji’s office where Naruto had been informed that he would be receiving his first mission ever. Even before he had officially graduated the Academy and received his hitai-ate!

And wasn’t that just the coolest thing, because for all that Naruto had been trying his hardest to be on his very best behavior – a promise he had made to Jiji a couple of years back when he had discovered the awesomeness that was fuinjutsu – he still carried the moniker of ‘class clown’ and he wanted desperately to find a way to convince his classmates that he was a serious ninja.

What better way to do that than to complete a real-life mission before he had even graduated? It was going to be so cool.

Except for it wasn’t.

Not even a little bit, really.

Sitting in front of Hokage-jiji, listening to the details of the mission, all of the excitement had left Naruto. Of course the only reason why he was receiving the mission was because of the damned fur-ball sealed in his stomach. And of course, because of that, Naruto would be barred from telling anybody.

Ever.

But there was more to it than that, wasn’t there? Mizuki-sensei – the only one who had ever shown him any special attention – the teacher who spent hours after school helping Naruto with the Academy taijutsu and kata’s, the one who continued to help even after Naruto had proven that the tests were just too much and failed every single one of them, had actually been sabotaging his education?

What?

Naruto had wanted to call out Hokage-jiji right there, had wanted to argue his teacher’s innocence (believe it!), but a small part of it made sense, didn’t it?

Nobody outside of the old man had ever gone out of their way to help him, Naruto: the Kyuubi’s jinchuriki. Naruto had been unable to stop the tears that had rolled down his whiskered cheeks and plopped onto his hands that had been fisted – white knuckled – in his training shorts.

And hadn’t that been embarrassing: crying in front of the man whom he had challenged for the Hokage hat not an hour before.

After that, a plan had been formed and he had been sent on his not so merry way.

Despite the fact that – apparently – the Intelligence Division had been gathering information on Mizuki-sensei for quite some time, Naruto had hoped beyond hope that things would not play out the way that Hokage-jiji had predicted.

They had.

After he had spectacularly failed the practical part of the graduation exam, Mizuki had approached him and asked him to do exactly as Hokage-jiji had expected: to steal the Forbidden Scroll.

Having memorized the details of the mission, breaking into the Hokage’s office had been no big deal (easier even than that time he had managed to paint the entirety of the Hokage’s Monument a glaring orange before anybody had caught him). He wasn’t supposed to actually learn the Shadow Clone jutsu but Naruto had been bored waiting around for Mizuki to meet him in the forest and the temptation had been too great: all of those techniques in the palm of his hand? He couldn’t say no.

The original mission outline had stated that the only thing Naruto had to do was talk to Mizuki (that bastard) long enough for the Anbu observing to gather enough incriminating information (whatever that meant, Naruto had just been ready to get the whole thing over with). Then Iruka-sensei – a man whom Naruto had assumed hated him all of this time – had jumped in and made things complicated in a way that Naruto hadn’t been sure he would be able to handle. The whole night had been a disaster. Believe it.

And now, here he was, locking lips with Sasuke-bastard just because the prick was such a bastard and Naruto had wanted to put him in his place. It hadn’t been his fault that one of Sasuke-bastards wretched fan-girls had bumped the chair he had been perched on and sent him toppling forward, arms wind-milling chaotically in order to stop from crashing into the boy in front of him.

The contact lasted only a second before Naruto was pulled back off of Sasuke and assaulted by multiple screeching kunoichi. Jeesh. Before he had to take drastic evasive measures into his own hands, Iruka-sensei dragged the girls apart and reminded everyone – sternly – that it was time to find their seats.

“Naruto! Why are you even here?” A girl who Naruto thought was Ami hissed into his ear as they all shuffled towards their desks. “Didn’t you get the memo? This is team assignments day and only those who passed the final exam get assigned a genin team, you idiot!”

Were those flames that he saw in her eyes? Whoa. She was scary. But he did pass! Believe it! He shouted his last thought so loud that the rest of classroom had definitely heard but he didn’t care.

He had passed and was now officially a genin ready to take missions and become Hokage! Oh man, this was the best day ever!

 

oOo

Uchiha do not show emotion. Uchiha do not showemotion. Uchiha do not show emotion.

The mantra that Sasuke Uchiha was repeating over and over again in his mind was the only reason why he didn’t jump up out of his desk and slaughter the dead-last that was walking away – oh so casually – after causing such a scene.

Pathetic.

Really. All of his classmates were and he was not looking forward to being placed with any of them on a team. In the background Iruka had started in on one of his speeches: congratulating those who had graduated and received hitai-ate’s. Any moment now and he would start to announce the team placements.

Psht.

Sasuke closed his eyes in order to avoid looking at the multiple – useless – kunoichi who were trying to catch his eye.

He didn’t need a team. Just a strong jounin that could train him until he was ready to accomplish his goal: just another stepping stone he could use in order to reach even higher so that he would be prepared on that day to kill that man.

He didn’t need distractions, didn’t need a bunch of weaklings that didn’t know anything that would halt his own progression forward. Honestly, what was the point to three man squads anyways?

Didn’t it make much more sense for the rookie of the year to receive an apprenticeship of sorts? One on one training with one of the villages best?

Perhaps, if his teammates were really as despicable as he just knew they were going to be, he could petition the elders and the shinobi council in order to make an apprenticeship possible.

“Team Seven will consist of Sakura Senju, Sasuke Uchiha, and Naruto Uzumaki!” Sasuke’s eyes snapped open at Iruka’s last announcement just as an indignant shout echoed out over the distinctly feminine booing.  


“What! How come an awesome shinobi such as myself has to get stuck on a team with that-that-that bastard!” Sasuke saw Iruka’s lips pull down and knew that they were in for another lecture – really their teacher was a terrible shinobi displaying such tells and so easily – and Sasuke just couldn’t take it anymore.

Showing emotion or not: some bugs deserved to be squashed. And that’s exactly what his new teammates were. Bugs.

“And how do you think I feel?” The rest of the classroom fell silent as soon as he spoke and Iruka eyed him warily, but he didn’t stop. “Being stuck on a team with a worthless dead-last pariah and a traitorous Senju bastard.”

It all came out in a snarl but Sasuke knew he had gotten his point across as soon as he felt the killing intent spike in the room. He watched the dead-last tense up and readied himself for an attack. As soon as the orange monstrosity’s feet left the ground Sasuke jumped up onto his own desk and sunk low into the Uchiha style defense.  


The sound of several chairs scraping back: something solid hit the back wall with a loud crash, and then before Sasuke had the chance to beat the ever living daylights out of the boy who had so pompously mocked him, somebody else was in the way.

She had both of her sandaled feet planted firmly between the dead-last’s shoulder blades: pinning him successfully half sprawled out on the desk’s surface. With a small huff she looked Sasuke up and down and then completely ignored him.

She was dismissing him as something less than a threat and – damn it all – Sasuke would show that Senju-bastard exactly how scared she should be of him.

“So glad that I’ve finally gained your notice.” She hadn’t moved, other than to look at the blond-haired boy below her, and Sasuke’s irritation grew (if that was even possible at this point) as the dead-last wheezed out a weak ‘hiya, Sakura-chan’. Then her green eyes were on him once more and Sasuke reveled in the small spark of hatred that he saw.

“And Uchiha here would know all about traitors, wouldn’t you Uchiha?” That knowing smirk. How dare she.

“That is enough!” Iruka bellowed from the front of the classroom but Sasuke was already too far gone.  
If these two wanted to challenge him then he wasn’t going to back down: he wasn’t weak.

Once again his fight was interrupted and he found himself pinned to the wall, arm twisted up at an awkward angle, and completely immobilized. Out of the corner of his eye – the one that wasn’t currently getting intimate with the wooden veins of the wall – he saw that the Senju was in a similar position with an unknown jounin instructor. Iruka was pulling Uzumaki off the desk and the rest of the students had evacuated towards the door: huddling together in small groups and murmuring amongst themselves.

The mood in the room shifted and Sasuke found himself free, standing on his own two feet again, and with a strong urge to rub the feeling back into his arm that he ignored.

“Now, now,” the jounin that had subdued him drawled around an unlit cigarette. “I do hope that these little shits ain’t mine, Iruka-sensei.”

“No. Of course not, Asuma-sensei. These are Hatake’s.” With that Iruka turned towards the rest of the class and instructed them to wait for their jounin sensei.

Before the man now identified as Asuma walked away, Sasuke heard him mumble a ‘serves him right’.


	2. Lunch with the Hokage: Kakashi Plots

Kakashi Hatake was not a happy man: a fact that he had previously thought was universally acknowledged. Previously, because he was now staring down at a chunin Academy instructor who had willingly walked up to Kakashi outside of a dango stand and introduced himself as Iruka Umino with a light bow and a lighter smile.

“Um, excuse me, Hatake-san. It’s just, that well, you are Kakashi Hatake, the jounin instructor slotted to take Team Seven, are you not?”

If Kakashi hadn’t been completely annoyed already he probably would have found this Umino-sensei’s meekness amusing. As it was, this was already turning out to be quite a stimulating conversation – not. Kakashi knew for a fact that Umino-sensei knew exactly who he was.

Well. If he was going to play dumb then Kakashi thought it only fair to return the favor. He was on his way to find a nice shady spot where he could relax and read his literary masterpiece in peace – away from prying chunin – when said chunin flash-stepped directly in his path.

A silly move considering just who Kakashi was and what kind of reputation he held amongst the ranks of Konohagakure. He could tell by the firm set of Umino-sensei’s jaw that ignoring this unexpected interruption would be more work than not.

Damn.

Slumping down further into his already exaggerated slouch, Kakashi turned a page and raised his single visible eyebrow high enough to indicate a question and waited for a reply.

“It’s just that the genin team assignments were today, you see, Hatake-san. Earlier today, to be exact,” was he being lectured? Judging by the tone of voice that Umino-sensei had adopted, Kakashi determined that yes, he was in fact being lectured by one of his lessers. Interesting that this young man would try to pull of something that even their esteemed Hokage couldn’t on most occasions.

“Ah. Indeed it was. You see, I had this appointment that I just couldn’t reschedule this morning. Important stuff, that appointment. I can assure you that I’m on my way to go pick up my cute little students now.”

Now Umino-sensei was the one with the quirked eyebrow as he stared down at the bag of dango dangling from between Kakashi’s fingers. If the Academy instructor was smart, he would drop the subject. Well. If he had been smart, he wouldn’t have approached Kakashi in the first place…

“As you say, Hatake-san. It’s just that there was a bit of a scuffle earlier today, you see. Involving all three of your students. I don’t think that it would be wise to leave them unattended for much longer. Ja ne, Hatake-san.”  


As Umino-sensei walked away Kakashi turned another page and decided that there was a cat in a tree somewhere within the village that needed rescuing.

Being a little bit more late than usual couldn’t hurt: after all, he wasn’t the one who wanted to spend his days teaching genin. The Hokage had sided with Guy – that damned man – and had foisted the position of jounin instructor on Kakashi with a strict warning that he would be removed from the active duty roster until he passed a team. While the sheer lack of activity had started to drive him mad (madder than usual, anyways) Kakashi was sure that it was just a power play: just a waiting game. 

If he managed to fail enough teams, then – eventually – a mission would cross the desk that only he was qualified for. When that happened then the Hokage would be forced to reinstate him. And if the little monsters that were currently assigned to him managed to tear each other apart while waiting, well –

That would be the easiest excuse yet for failing a team. An excuse even the Hokage would be forced to buy.

oOo

To say that Sakura was just irritated now would be an understatement.

After the fiasco in class, a debacle she had lowered herself enough to participate in, the rest of the students had been instructed to return to their seats and await their jounin sensei. She had watched one group after another disappear through the classroom door until finally – unfortunately – her team and Iruka-sensei were the only ones left.

Spaced out as they were, sitting in opposite corners of each other, the distance between her and her new teammates expanded to nearly the entire classroom.

Sakura knew that Iruka-sensei had put off leaving them alone for as long as he could – the young teacher had been shooting nervous glances at the clock at almost minute intervals – but the time came when he just couldn’t wait any longer. With a stern lecture on what the consequences would be if they continued the little dispute from earlier, Iruka-sensei had packed up his bag and left.

And now here she was: trying to study the scroll from Kiba that she had momentarily forgotten about, and failing miserably. Honestly. It was like the Uchiha was convinced that he could burn a hole through her head just by glaring.

Actually…

That was something to keep in mind for future reference. Sakura wasn’t sure exactly what abilities the Sharingan granted the Uchiha clan with, but if there was even a small chance that the anti-social boy in front of her would be able to develop a technique that would allow him to shoot fire from his eyes, she needed to be on her toes at all times.

Not that she wasn’t going to be anyways.

Clearly the taunt he had thrown out earlier in the day had been a challenge and she had ended up answering with one of her own. As of now it wasn’t a matter of who would back down first but of who would be left standing after the fight.

And then there was Naruto Uzumaki…

Her thoughts were interrupted by a loud bang that sounded suspiciously like a book being slammed down on a desk. She lowered her own reading material in order to investigate. What she saw made her want to sigh in exasperation: Uzumaki had abandoned his pass time of choice – a large tome with a ratty cover that Sakura had only been able to pick out the word ‘fuinjutsu’ from – and was now engaged in a staring contest with the resident bastard.

“Ya listen here, Sasuke-bastard! If ya gotta problem why don’tcha say somethin’ ‘stead of sittin’ there all mopey and starey and bastardly like?”

From that one statement Sakura was able to deduce two things: one, that she hadn’t been the only one receiving dastardly Uchiha glares of doom and; two, Uzumaki seemed to be just as reluctant to put their unfinished fight off as the rest of them were. This was going to be a disaster.

“Oi, Uzumaki. Calm down. The Uchiha is just acting that way because his panties are in a twist and he wants to rile you up. Don’t you remember what Iruka-sensei said would happen if we started fighting again?” She really was worried about what would happen if the boys got into an all-out brawl at this time. Judging by the way that Uzumaki pulled himself together and started pacing the classroom, so was he.

“Hn.” Was the Uchiha’s only response and Sakura immediately slipped into a form of meditative breathing in order to prevent herself from becoming a hypocrite.

“This is so lame. So so so lame. Everyone else’s jounin have already picked ‘em up. Where’s ours, huh? Even Iruka-sensei left an’ this is his classroom. Ugh.”

“We already know this, dead-last.” Uchiha grumbled back in response to Uzumaki’s whining.

“Shut up, bastard. Ya don’t count,” Uzumaki shot back.

As the two started bickering back and forth – again – Sakura decided that she had had enough. Protocol stated that if a sensei or higher-ranking officer was more than thirty minutes late to a predetermined meeting, students or reporting shinobi were to abandon previous missions and alert another higher-ranking shinobi.

Their jounin instructor was definitely tardy more than thirty minutes, she was hungry, and she needed to escape from this classroom before she decided to beat her teammates’ heads in. It said something about how focused they were on one another that the boys didn’t even notice her until she was about to open the classroom door and even then Uzumaki did a comic double-take: head swinging back and forth between her and the clone she had made to leave behind. Just in case.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Uchiha accused as he positioned himself between her and the doorway.

“Don’t worry, bastard. I’m not trying to sabotage anything. Don’t forget that we’re on the same team whether we like it or not.” At that she dug into her hip pouch, only slightly pleased that the Uchiha had tensed in response, and pulled out her copy of Konohagakure: Shinobi Guide (she would have to stop carrying it now that she was a registered genin and would, potentially, be sent on missions outside of the village walls). “The rules clearly state that if a jounin sensei is late to a predetermined meeting that genin squads are required to report to another higher-ranking shinobi,” Sakura couldn’t help the small jab that came out of her mouth next. “As rookie of the year, I’m surprised that you don’t already have the various protocols memorized.”

“Oh wow, Sakura-chan! You’re so smart. That’s perfect! Hahaha. Yeah, bastard. How come your high n’ mighty self didn’t think of this?” Before Sakura could object to the ‘chan’ suffix, Naruto blurred through a set of handsigns that looked vaguely familiar and summoned forth what had to be at least twenty clones of himself.

Who all immediately started arguing about who was the ‘boss’ but silenced quickly after Uzumaki ordered them to stay in the classroom in order to await their jounin sensei – should he arrive anytime soon.

The Uchiha was scowling when she turned to follow the blond down the hallway but that was nothing new: his default expressions seemed to be limited between scowling and smirking.

oOo

Oh man oh man oh man! This was awesome. Believe it!

Naruto snickered into his hand and shot another sideways glance at the bastard. His black hair was sticking up in all different directions and he was panting slightly, having barely managed to create a clone himself and escape the classroom before a swarm of Narutos had pounced. Of course the bastard had managed to kill a couple of his minions which was the only reason why Naruto was able to receive the mental feedback. But man oh man if the expression on Sasuke-bastards face wasn’t worth it! Served him right for being so damned ‘I am better than everyone’ all of the time.

“Uzumaki. What is so funny?”

“Oh man, Sakura-chan. His face,” Naruto tried to go into more detail – he really did – but he succumbed to his laughter once more.

Sasuke-bastards fist plowed into his shoulder and nearly knocked him over into a produce stand. By the time he had recovered his balance and escaped the cabbage man’s wrath both of his teammates were a good couple of yards in front of him and he had to jog in order to catch up.

“Oi, bastard. What was that for!”

“Hn.”

Naruto was distracted from beating an actual answer from Sasuke-bastard by the downtrodden look on his pink haired teammates face. Straightening from his taijutsu stance and preparing to defend his actions (he really didn’t want Sakura to treat him like all of the others did – he had to stay in her good graces), he was shocked to see that she hadn’t even been looking at him but instead down at an empty satchel in her hand. A coin pouch… An empty coin pouch? Ah.

Naruto – if asked – would be the first to admit that he was almost unnaturally obtuse. Sometimes it as for real: sometimes he just didn’t understand what people were trying to say, didn’t understand why people acted a certain way. Most of the time though it was a sort-of-on-purpose defense-mechanism that he had developed years and years ago.

Even as a child he had noticed the difference in the way that the villagers treated him compared to the other orphans, had seen both the fear and the hatred that seemed to be directed solely towards him. Naruto hadn’t understood any of this until the day of his fifth birthday: his Anbu guard had had to step in and dissuade a drunken mob from burning down his apartment building. And then Hokage-jiji had explained to him the responsibilities of being a jinchuriki using an analogy that involved a kunai and a sealing scroll.  


For five years, though, Naruto had survived an often cruel reality by pretending not to notice what was happening around him. That didn’t mean that he was stupid. No matter what Sasuke-bastard thought.

“Hey, hey, Sakura-chan. Let’s stop for something to eat! I’m starving!” Before she could even get out the ‘n’ for the ‘no’ that he just knew she was going to answer with, Naruto spoke up once more. “Come on! It’s my treat, promise, Sakura-chan! There’s this awesome ramen stand not even a full block from here.”

“Pathetic.”

“Shut up, Sasuke-bastard. I don’t know if ya forgot, but we missed lunch an’ we don’t know what’s gonna happen after we go see Hokage-jiji. Not even a bastard like you can survive off of nothin’ but air.” Unless, Naruto mused, he could.

Which would be totally weird but would also explain why the bastard thought he was so much better than everyone else. It would be easy to look down on people who needed food and such if you never had to concern yourself with it.

Huh.

Sakura was doubled over laughing next to him and the bastard’s face was a peculiar color… almost pink. Oh wow. Had he said that last part out loud?

Whoopsies.

“Shut up, Senju,” and then a “lead the way, dead-last. But we’re getting it to go.”

Naruto was so shocked by the fact that he had even gotten a response that he just grinned his widest grin, threw his hands behind his head, and started off towards Ichiraku’s.

oOo 

Kakashi was not a happy man – this was true.

The fact that he had also kind of sort of been banking on his genin hopefuls to tear each other apart was also true.

That didn’t mean, however, that he was not just a little bit shocked at what he found when he finally made his way towards the Academy.

Of course he had expected the lot of them to be bored out of their minds – had actually been looking forward to it – but more importantly he had expected them to actually be there. Bored – sure – but waiting for him nonetheless. Like cute little genin hopefuls.

Initially he had found nothing out of the ordinary: three different chakra signatures inside of the classroom and all of that. Kakashi had written off the obviously lackluster amounts of said chakra signature on the ‘scuffle’ that Umino-sensei had informed him of.

It really was amazing the amount of chakra that genin managed to burn through without proper training in control. It had been when he cracked open the door and all hell had broken loose that he had first begun to suspect that something was not quite right.

From what Kakashi had read from their individual files – a tedious task, that stuff was so dry – each and every one of his not-quite-yet genin charges had a Grade A personality and one of them was a notorious prankster so he had anticipated at least some form of retaliation for his tardiness.

He had expected an eraser in the door, maybe a few harmless trip wires rigged up with some heinous trajectory and dull kunai. What he had not expected, however, was for the eraser to be the trigger for some trap work that would put even some chunin Kakashi knew to shame.

He was intrigued – if only slightly – because none of what he had read had indicated that any of the three had ever showed any talent in that particular art. Kakashi actually had a bit of fun avoiding and disabling the traps. They were low ranking, of course, and he barely had to exert any effort at all (he was a jounin) but they were also creative.

And where were those brats?

Ah… Wait. Were they really? Yes. Yes they were.

All three of them were tucked under the cover that Umino-sensei’s desk offered and sleeping.

When he stalked around the edge of the desk, crouched down, and activated a flash-bang with a small thread of chakra, Kakashi expected them to jolt awake. Of course what he expected obviously held no value at all because instead of acting like frightened little genin hopefuls and pulling themselves together under the scrutiny of their jounin instructor – like they should have – they poofed.

Literally. 

As in clones. And now he was standing in an empty classroom sans three genin whom he was technically responsible for and with nary an explanation for the Hokage.

To say that he was surprised when he was rushed through the Hokage’s doors not even five minutes after and was met with the sight of all three of the previously missing genins sitting around in a circle and eating ramen would be an understatement.  


The Hokage was overlooking it all with a satisfied upturn of lips and Kakashi was not happy.

“Ah. Kakashi-kun, how nice of you to join us. Children, this is Kakashi Hatake, your jounin instructor. Kakashi-kun, these are the genin of Team Seven.”

Kakashi snapped his book closed and tucked it into his kunai pouch as he observed the genin in front of him. None of them had even bothered to stand up and greet him and Kakashi would swear that he saw a twinkle of something mischievous in the Hokage’s eyes. Damn that man.

“Mah now. Is that any way to greet your sensei?” His question was answered with a carelessly shrugged feminine shoulder, a delicately arched aristocratic brow, and an indignant squawk of ‘you were so late’.

“Ah, yes. As I’m sure you understand, Senju-kun and her teammates were quite worried when their assigned instructor failed to arrive at the designated meeting spot within an acceptable period of time. Following the proper protocols, they arrived here at the Tower in order to voice their concerns, Kakashi-kun.”

“I see, Hokage-sama. And look at that! It looks like – even in their worry – they managed to find the time to bring their esteemed Hokage lunch.” Kakashi gestured towards the empty bowl that was stacked precariously on top of a rather tall pile of paperwork next to the Hokage’s desk.

“All the better to wait for your arrival,” the Sandaime answered on a chuckle.

“Wait! Wait! So you’re our jounin sensei? How come ya were so late comin’ to meet us at the Academy, huh? Were ya attacked? Oh man. I bet ya were, weren’tya? An’ ya had’ta fight ‘em all off with your super cool ninja tricks that you’re gonna teach us!”

If he didn’t look at the genin with the orange jumpsuit, he could almost forget that the kid standing in front of him practically vibrating with excitement was his late sensei’s son.

Almost.

“Hm. No. There was this cat, see, stuck up in the tallest tree of the village just mewling its little heart out. I couldn’t, in good conscience, just leave him there.”

“Are you telling me that it took you over four hours to rescue a cat from a tree?” Hissed the dark-haired youth who was now standing behind and slightly away from the other two.

“Mah. Well, you see, it was more of a kitten and less of a cat and it was a very tall tree, don’t you remember?” Ah. Silence from all at last. “Anyways my cute little genin, don’t you think we’ve wasted enough of the Hokage’s time? Let’s all meet back up on the roof of the Academy in – oh – about five minutes, why don’t we?”

“Five minutes! Are ya crazy? We can’t make it all of the way back ‘ta the other side of the village in five minutes!”

“You better be back on that rooftop in five minutes. I suggest that you all run as fast as your cute little genin legs will carry you!” He noted – absently – that the girl of the team was the only one who turned to bid the Hokage farewell with an almost silent ‘by your leave Hokage-sama’ before she bolted out of the door: hot on the heels of the boys who had left her behind.

“Be safe my darling children! I will see you shortly!” Kakashi called down the hallway and was rewarded with a terrified screech from the orange menace.

Turning to excuse himself, Kakashi waved farewell to the Sandaime and implemented a transportation jutsu that would deposit him safely on the school rooftop, but not before he saw the small smirk on the Professors face.

His cute little genin hopefuls were in for hell tomorrow.

oOo

He should have never let that Senju bastard and the dead-last con him into following them to the Hokage Tower, shinobi guidelines or not.

Now his rank as a genin of Konohagakure was on the line and it was all because his teammates – damn the both of them – had angered their jounin instructor. Not that said jounin was much of a catch.

Honestly.

The man had to be at least on the beginning spectrum of senior citizenship with that unruly mop of silver hair. And what kind of respectable shinobi made up such childish excuses?

Sasuke had maybe been willing to let such an unprofessional behavior slide if the man proved his worth as an instructor but then Hatake (“Mah, now. You can just call me Kakashi-sensei.”) had stated that they were worthless (“My first impression of you three is: you all will never make it as ninja!”) and then had continued to make them all introduce themselves. Like they were civilian students in some sort of daycare system (“your hobbies, dreams, things like that my cute little ducklings”).

He hadn’t been paying any attention to the other two as they spoke but he had played his part when his time had come and he didn’t miss the sideways glance that the damned Senju shot him when he announced his ambition (“there’s a certain man I need to kill”). It had taken every ounce of his practiced Uchiha control not to lunge at her and wrap his calloused fingers around her throat and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze.

And now here he was, still processing the departing jab that their instructor had left them with, and watching the panic set into the eyes of his teammates.

“What’s he mean, we’re not officially genin yet, huh? There’s another test?” Maybe if the dead-last continued to run around in circles like that, he’d end up toppling over the side of the building. It would save Sasuke the effort of killing the idiot himself.

“Uzumaki, calm down. There’s got to be some sort of catch. We just need to think for a moment.”

“Hn.” Now that was amusing: the dead-last, thinking? Not going to happen.

“Sasuke-bastard, if you’re not gonna actually say any words, why don’tcha just shut up!”

“Dead-last, it’s simple: one of you is going back to the Academy tomorrow. He just said that only two of us could pass, although I have to admit that I was hoping that the both of you would be sent back.” Pushing the blond off of the roof was looking more and more appealing. If questioned he was sure that he could write it off as an accident, but only if the Senju wasn’t around to see…

Perhaps he could push them both? It would eliminate the probability of witnesses and he would be rid of the problem of teammates at the same time…

“Heya Sakura-chan, where ya goin’?”

“We’re not accomplishing anything here, especially with the two of you acting like idiots. I’m going to go gather some information.”

“Wait, Senju. I’m going with.”

“What! Sasuke-bastard, when did ya start liking Sakura-chan? Sakura-chan! Wait up!”

“I don’t like that Senju bastard, dead-last. But if she’s got a way to get information about our jounin instructor that might lead to the purpose behind the test tomorrow I’m not just going to let her take the upper hand like that.” 

The Senju had been ranked the highest kunoichi in the class.

She had been in the same tier as himself during the taijutsu drills but they had never been partnered in spars so Sasuke was unaware of her full ability in that department. Even then, Sasuke was sure that he would be able to take her on a one on one spar.

The problem was: he didn’t know what the jounin’s test tomorrow would consist of and that was… worrisome. What if it wasn’t a taijutsu spar? What if it was something else entirely?

The Senju had spent the majority of the Academy years that he could remember hanging out with the Nara heir, a boy with a genius that even Sasuke couldn’t dispute. What if some of that sharp thinking had rubbed of on the pinkette?

If she somehow gained the upper hand she would provide to be more of a challenge than acceptable. He had to pass whatever test they were going to receive tomorrow and he had to do it undisputed. It was his only chance to get stronger so he could finally accomplish his goal.

“And waddya gonna do if she don’t wan’t ya to tag along, ya bastard?”

“Hn. Then she’s going to have to try and stop me, dead-last.” Sasuke hadn’t realized they were close enough for the Senju to hear his snarky reply to the dead-last’s stupid question until she stopped abruptly and turned around to face him.

“And do you think that I wouldn’t be able to do that, Uchiha?”

Just like that – snap – his nervous system was firing, his senses were heightened, and he could practically feel the adrenaline washing over his muscles and preparing him for the fight. It was an odd reaction, that was for sure. Never before – not once – during the spars at the Academy had he had such an overwhelming need to prove himself as he did now: staring into the eyes of the Senju bastard that had called him out.

He was going to crush her.

She must have sensed at least a part of his thoughts because she sunk down into an unfamiliar taijutsu pose – definitely not a form they had learned during the Academy kata’s – and her lips peeled up from her teeth. There was no knowing smirk now, just a viscous slash of pink and white that was practically begging him to annihilate her.

“Um, guys. I don’t know if this is such a good idea, ya know? Remember what ya said, Sakura-chan?”

“We’re not in the Academy now, Uzumaki, and we were formally released from our duties as soon as Hatake-sensei dismissed us.” Sasuke waited until she had finished her sentence before he attacked.

He wanted her full attention on him. He wanted to watch the light in her eyes dim, watch the blood drain out of her face when she realized that she was outmatched.

There was a flash of silver – ninja wire? – and the kunai that he had retrieved from his pouch not seconds before was ripped from his grasp. A hand around the front of his throat. A thumb resting above his trachea, threatening to crush his windpipe any moment. The red cleared from Sasuke’s eyes and he was met with the shadowed face of the dead-last.

What?

“Sorry, Sakura-chan.” If Sasuke angled his eyes just so he could make out the form of the Senju bastard, face first on the ground and struggling against the sandaled foot that was pinned against the back of her head. She responded to the dead-last’s apology with a muffled snarl.

“Whaddya guys say to a truce, huh?”

Sasuke replied with a snarl of his own and wrapped his hands around the blonde’s forearm. He was going to snap his bones in half and then he was going to finish what he had started with the Senju. Before he was able to apply any serious pressure the grip around his throat tightened and there was a shift of weight that left the Senju pressed more firmly into the ground.

Damn the both of them!


	3. Chapter 3

The last thing he had wanted to do was propose a truce.

Honestly, Naruto suspected that they were going to have a long night ahead of them and by proposing the truce he had basically promised that he wasn’t going to try and beat the bastard out of Sasuke-bastard. It was going to be an exercise in self-control – for all of them – but as long as they were focused on something else it maybe-probably-wouldn’t-hopefully come down to a three-way melee between them.

If it did, he could only hope that they all didn’t lose control before they left the civilian district: paying for property damage would leave him strapped for cash and they would probably get a lecture from Hokage-jiji.

More than a lecture.

It was emphasized – especially at the Academy – that it was wholly unacceptable to practice destructive ninja arts while inside the civilian district. Not that they would be able to cause too much damage before they were interrupted by one of the various chunin or jounin that were stationed around the village watch… but still.

Sakura was strong. And fast. So fast. A fact that the bastard apparently hadn’t picked up on quite yet because he had seemed awfully confident that the only female member of their team wasn’t going to offer up much of a challenge when they had goaded each other into that fight.

Then again, the bastard was the top of their class so maybe that confidence was there for a reason?

It didn’t matter. He still didn’t have to be so bastardly about it.

And if it did come down to a fight between the three, Naruto knew that it would primarily be taijutsu: unless something happened to tip the scales. And then he was screwed.

The only jutsu he had been able to master so far were the basic three (basic two if you didn’t count the Shadow Clone as a part of that) and while he still had a spool of ninja wire left in his pouch, that wasn’t going to offer up much of an advantage if the other two were flinging around fireballs and such. Naruto just knew that the bastard probably had a jutsu like that up his sleeve. Of course,… there were always seals but the majority of the ones Naruto had been learning or enhancing were not necessarily low on the destruction scale…

This was the third or fourth time in as many seconds that green eyes had darted over his features and rolled away.

“What’s up, Sakura-chan?”

“Nothing, Uzumaki. You just got quiet.”

“Don’t remind him, Senju. This is the first time that the dead-last has shut up this entire afternoon. I was just starting to enjoy it.”

“Nobody cares ‘bout what ya want, Sasuke-bastard. I was just thinkin’, Sakura-chan, that’s all.”

A scoff. “Do you even know what that word means, dead-last?”

“He probably has a better understanding of it than you do, Uchiha.”

“Was that a four-syllable word, Senju? My, my. Are you feeling strained? No? I guess somebody is moving up in the world, then.”

“Having been born as low as you have, Uchiha, I can understand how the process of advancement is so intriguing to you. After all, you’ll always be at the bottom of the barrel, won’t you?”

Naruto didn’t normally pay attention to the looks that civilians sent him but even he was having a hard time ignoring the number of stares that his teammates’ bickering was gaining.

“Hey guys,” he mocked whispered in an attempt to get the attention of the two who had stopped in the middle of the street and were now throwing insults back and forth at one another. It worked and he found himself on the receiving end of a pair of death glares that had his mouth drying up ad his eyes bulging slightly.

“What do you want, Uzumaki?” And, “shut up, dead-last.”

“It’s just that, well, I was thinkin’ ‘bout our truce, ya know. And we’re in the civilian district now, ya know. So, I just think that’s it’s important that we stick to the agreement. Believe it.”

“Don’t worry, Uzumaki. I’m not going to try anything in the civilian district.” Green eyes scanned her surroundings after her statement and Naruto swore that he saw a shadow cross her face before she turned back towards them.

“She’s right, dead-last. I’m not stupid enough to try anything on these streets either. Now let’s go. We’re wasting time.” As if the bastard even knew where they were supposed to be going.

“We’re almost there. Just, stick close and don’t look for too long, okay?” Awe, she looked so cute with a blush! Wait,

“don’t look too long at what, Sakura-chan?” When he ran to catch up to her and saw that she had paused at that intersection, understanding flooded Naruto.

Sakura must have noticed the shocked expression on his face because she turned around and mumbled something that sounded like ‘we’ve gotta go in there’. Naruto saw the moment she steeled her spine and looked up to speak to him with more confidence.

“Listen. I know it’s not necessarily a pleasant environment, but the person I know is in there, okay? If the two of you aren’t comfortable then you can just wait out here and I can promise that I’ll relay whatever information that I’ve found.” Before she had even received an answer, she was turning away from them and Naruto shot out his hand to grasp at her shoulder.

“Hey now, Sakura-chan. It’s okay! Of course, I’m gonna come with ya! Actually, this is perfect, ya see, ‘cause since we’re here there might be a coup’la people I can ask too, ya know? Since we’re gathering information and all that.” Naruto understood the shame that seemed to envelope her like a cloak: knowing people beyond the strings of red lanterns, having contact with the ‘undesirables’ carried a stigma that was not too pleasant.

Naruto had spent the earliest parts of his life roaming the streets of Konohagakure and as such had acquaintances of his own in the red-light district. Of course, then the Hokage had declared him the last living member of Konoha’s Uzumaki clan and had had him moved into a giant clan compound filled with the houses and relics of people whom he had never met.

Sometimes – if Naruto was honest with himself – he could admit that he probably would have preferred the orphanage, streets, and stipend far more than he did the large bank account and empty rooms.

He was curious about who exactly it was that Sakura knew and how she had come to the red-light district in the first place. Naruto may have not paid her any attention in the Academy, but he had often passed her on the mostly deserted streets around the Uzumaki compound. She did live in the same distract as he did, didn’t she?  


So why?

“Oi, bastard,” Naruto doubted that Sasuke would lower himself enough to enter the red-light district with them, but he really shouldn’t wait on that particular corner. His dark-haired teammate was just young enough – and just haughty enough – that he would attract all the wrong kinds of attention. “If you’re too good to come in with us, why don’tcha just pick a meeting spot where ya can wait for us to get back?”

Naruto wasn’t quite sure how the bastard managed to pull it off – he was only a couple of inches taller, damnit – but he managed to look down his nose on the two of them when he answered: “yeah right. Like I actually trust either one of you enough to believe that you’d tell me everything that you’d learned?”

“But you’ll trust us enough to walk through that,” Sakura gestured behind her, “with us? Even though you’re clearly out of your element?”

Naruto swung his arm around Sakura’s shoulder, ignored the slight stiffening of her small frame, and chuckled. “She’s right, bastard. Just stick close an’ try not to accidentally sell yourself, okay? It would be embarrassing if we had to explain to Kaka-sensei that the reason only two of his students showed up to tomorrow’s test was ‘cause we hadn’t been able to buy ya back in time.”

Naruto steered Sakura around and started walking beneath the lanterns but she twisted her head around and cautioned against staring for too long one more time.

oOo

Sakura had long since shrugged off the weight of Uzumaki’s arm and couldn’t decide if she was amused, grateful, or irritated that he had continued to hover so close to her.

‘Irritated’ seemed to be popping up frequently around her teammates.

They had wasted a good amount of time between the fight turned truce and then the verbal spar: they were now walking down the streets of the red-light district at one of the worst times. Twilight was when most of the brothels started to open their doors and take in customers.

It was also during this time that select women – and men – were sent out by brothel mothers to stroll the streets in an attempt to lure more customers into each respective house. By the time the sun finally set, all the working men and women would be back inside but, for now, it was impossible to tell which of the crowd were buyers and which were sellers.

Which meant that her and her teammates were attracting way too many eyes for her comfort.

“Don’t stop, bastard.” She heard Uzumaki hiss somewhere over her left shoulder. He was right, though. They really shouldn’t stop. She slowed her steps and gestured for Uzumaki to take up guard on the Uchiha’s right side while she slid into position on his left, successfully boxing him in. It was a common formation – especially during escort missions – and she just knew that the bastard had noticed this and was gearing up for a very verbal objection. Uzumaki was apparently on the same wavelength because before the Uchiha could open his mouth a tanned hand was pushing his head forward and down.

“I wasn’t joking when I warned ya ‘bout accidentally selling yourself, ya bastard.”

The Uchiha was trying to shoot fire from his eyes – again – as he glared at Uzumaki and gestured towards his hitai-ate. “I don’t think I’m going to be mistaken as some sort of man whore, dead-last.”

“It’s called roleplay, ya idiot, and a’lota people are into that sorta’ thing.”

Sakura had already begun to suspect that Uzumaki was a lot smarter than he led on but she did not want to know how he had come to learn that particular bit of information.

Sakura caught the Uchiha’s eyes with her own and made a small gesture over her shoulder, pointing out a group standing across the street without actually pointing them out. She could tell the moment his eyes landed on what she had wanted him to notice: several young men and women dressed up in obviously fake shinobi gear and leading one customer after another through a swinging front door.

“But we’re genin,” he hissed.

Sakura guessed that the emphasis of the word ‘genin’ was less him pointing out the fact that they were actual shinobi and more him pointing out their age.

“A lot of people are into that, as well, Uchiha.” Sakura responded before continuing on.

Miraculously they made it to Jiro-sans establishment without further incident and Sakura let out a relieved sigh. It had been easier to sneak in the Inuzuka than it had been to just walk down the street with her two teammates.  


That had to mean something, right?

“Ah, Sakura-chan! How pleasant to see you again and so soon! Here to pick up your winnings, are you? And who are these two fine young gentlemen who have accompanied you?” There was a flurry of movement and crimson robes as Jiro-san called out to his assistant to ‘collect the young miss Senju’s winnings, will you’ and then the flamboyant man was crouched over and examining the three of them.

The first time that Sakura had met the man she had been so shocked by both his appearance and his personality that she had remained completely speechless the entire time. It seemed as if her two teammates were having a similar reaction.

Good.

On the nights that The Pit was active, Jiro-san donned loose fitting clothes similar to those of a shinobi. He cut quite an intimidating figure with his tall, lithe frame and bald head. On the nights that The Pit was closed, however, it was almost as if Jiro-san donned a completely different personality.

Tonight, he was decked out in full kabuki gear: geta adding to his already impressive height, an elaborate yakuta that looked like it cost more than Sakura’s entire wardrobe, and the traditional black, white, and red makeup.  


“Ah, ah, ah!” Jiro-san exclaimed, waving a delicate finger in her face. “Don’t tell me, Sakura-chan. These must be your teammates!” He finished with a squeal and a pirouette.

“Yes, Jiro-san. The one in orange is Naruto Uzumaki and the broody one is Sasuke Uchiha. Actually, Jiro-san, we were wondering if…” Jiro-san had sobered up significantly and was now looking down on the lot of them with his hands on his hips and his face set in hard lines.

“I see.” Jiro-san murmured. For some odd reason, Uzumaki sent her an apologetic look but she didn’t have the patience to figure out why right now.

“Um, Jiro-san?” She questioned.

“That’s quite an impressive grouping of names you’ve got right there, Sakura-chan.”

“I’m not quite sure I understand, Jiro-san?” Sakura asked again but was interrupted out of an explanation when the assistant from before arrived with a stuffed envelope.

Just like that the spell on Jiro-san was broken and he was back to acting like his dramatic self.

“Sakura-chan, look at you! It seems that that boy you brought me was worth it, neh? I’d keep him around if I were you!” Jiro-san taunted as he spun her around into a headlock and waved the envelope in front of her face. There was quite a bit of money…

“Of course, I took the liberty of extracting the agreed upon fees from your winnings, Sakura-chan. And that other little agreement, of course.” He said it with a wink.

The envelope was deposited into her hands and Sakura was dropped to the floor when Jiro-san clapped and declared that they were all going to have a tea ceremony and then he would be ‘just so happy to answer any of your questions, Sakura-chan’.

Before any of them could object, a loud rumbling rattled the walls.  


Pictures fell from their hangings, ceramic statues shattered on the floor, paper-lined sliding doors tore, and the floor fell from beneath them all: sending them tumbling head over heels into the darkness below.

oOo

All in all, Naruto thought that it could have been way worse. 

Sinkholes, while not common in the Land of Fire, did occasionally form and Naruto remembered an instance he had read about during the second year of the Academy: a sinkhole had opened along the border of Fire and… Some other country that Naruto couldn't remember the name of. Anyways, it had swallowed a whole village and shinobi had spent days digging through the rubble and unearthing whatever survivors they could find. The natural disaster had resulted in several fatalities and blame had been laid upon the shinobi arts. Something else happened then and it had led to the creating of a treaty of sorts… Another detail that Naruto wasn't quite sure the specifics of. But he did know that despite the complete destruction of several establishments within the red-light district, nobody seemed to be seriously injured and that's what mattered the most.

After the initial shock of having the floor quite literally fall from beneath them, Naruto and his teammates had managed to use the debris from the collapsing building to launch their way up and out of the now disintegrated roof. For a brief moment Naruto had panicked because in that chaotic escape he had completely forgotten about that crazy man whom Sakura knew and the other, more quiet, one. He had just about been ready to launch himself back down into the rubble to start digging when he saw that the two civilians were propped up against a fallen electricity pole.

"Heya Sakura-chan, you're not hurt, are ya?" Even beneath the white dust that was now coating her, Naruto could see that her usually tanned face was a couple of shades lighter than he thought was healthy. And was she shaking?

"I'm fine, Uzumaki. You?" He obviously wasn't going to get more out of her but if she said that she was alright then he'd have to believe her. For now, anyways. He nodded his head and then turned to look towards the bastard.  


"What about you, Sasuke-bastard? Ya didn't get hurt, did ya?" An almost miniscule widening of brown eyes and then a sharp shake of the head was the only answer Naruto received but that was enough. Man, his teammates really needed to lighten up a bit. Sakura wasn't nearly as bad as the bastard, she at least answered him in complete sentences, but man. To steal the phrase from the lazy, cloud watching bastard, Naruto's teammates were troublesome.

"You three." The crazy man called as he leapt over to them with a skill that contradicted the category ‘civilian’ that Naruto had originally filed him under. "It might take a while for word to get out, or for one of the shinobi on patrol to pass by this area, so I'm commandeering the three of you until help comes."

"Like a mission!" Naruto exclaimed. Oh man oh man ohman ohmanohman. This was gonna be awesome! Believe it!  


"Yes, Uzumaki-kun," Naruto startled at the familiar suffix but the crazy man continued as if he hadn't noticed. "Like a mission. Only this one is going to sort of be off the books, considering. Think of it as a first responding 'disaster relief' if you will. There are still people trapped in this mess, and they're going to need help out." And didn't that just suck? Because he had just received his hitai-ate that very morning yet he already had two super cool missions under his belt that absolutely no one was gonna know about.

"Alright! Crazy-jiji! Team 7 reporting for duty! Believe it!"

"What a way to volunteer all of us, dead-last." Sasuke sighed as he walked over to join Naruto.

"You're a genin of Konohagakure, Uchiha. Even you wouldn't be able to say no. Unless you really are as much of an asshole as you pretend to be." Sakura was a little wobbly but she walked up to stand on Naruto's other side, opposite the bastard, and asked the crazy man, "what do you need us to do, Jiro-san?"

Jiro-san, crazy old man that he was, clasped his hands together in front of his heart and said, between lips that had been smooshed together in a comical recreation of a fish: "Aren't you three just the cutest wittle genin I've ever laid eyes on!" The last part ended in an awfully shrill squeak but then the man was serious all over again and Naruto had whiplash. Watching Jiro-san jump between personalities was exhausting.

"I know that you've just graduated, but by any chance do any of you know any sensory detection jutsu's?"

"Hn." Accompanied by a shake of a head.

"What is that?" Naruto had absolutely no idea what the old man was talking about.

"I do, Jiro-san."

"Oh Sakura-chan! I knew you were more than just brawn! I just knew it! Now, now, tell Jiro-san, what jutsu do you know?" Did he really need to twirl around every time he said Sakura's name? Naruto didn't think so but… Well. And what did he mean by brawn? Sakura didn't look very brawny.

"It's just a chakra net, Jiro-san. And my range isn't that far yet."

Serious. "That will do just fine, Sakura-chan. Better than I had hoped, honestly. I want you guys to start over there, by that blossom canopy," Jiro-san indicated a spot directly behind the genin on the other side of the sinkhole. "And work at an inwards counter-clockwise spiral towards the center. Mark off each space that has been completely evacuated using the all-clear jutsu. They still teach that in the Academy, don't they?" Jiro-san questioned. Naruto, once again, had absolutely no idea what the crazy man was talking about but he followed along when both of his teammates gave a silent nod.

"Alright then, kiddies. You work on that and I'll see what I can do to set up someplace for you to send the wounded." Jiro-san stalked off muttering something about procuring a wagon and "what is taking the patrol so long?".

oOo

Sasuke wasn't too fond of the idea of taking orders from a civilian but he was a genin of Konohagakure and there were people in need of help. Seedy, dirty, vagabonds, but people none the less and it was his duty to help those in need as one of the only shinobi first responders on site. No matter how useless or time consuming it was. Once again, he blamed his current predicament on the Senju bastard. It had been her idea to come to this place and he had followed because she had sounded so sure that she would be able to get information on Kakashi Hatake. Well, they had no information and he was currently digging through the rubble of a whore house, trying to unearth a group of barely clothed women who were huddled together under a support beam.

"Oh, Mira-chan, look at all of those muscles!" One of the females cooed as he lifted a particularly large piece of wood that was hindering their access.

"Don't I just know it, Lena-chan! He's so cute! And have you seen his blond companion? Eye's like the sky, that one!" Another chorus of giggles and Sasuke was seriously debating just leaving this group here and moving on. They were worse than the fan-girls back at the Academy and they were almost twice his age! Useless.

With the shrug of a shoulder, one of the girls' kimono's fell to reveal way more than was considered decent and Sasuke found himself fighting down a blush. Uchiha do not show emotion. Uchiha do not show emotion.

There was an all too familiar snicker from behind him and then the dead-last was there, offering help in pulling up one female after another. "Oi, oi, nee-chans." The blond playfully whined. "Don't tease Sasuke-bastard too much, neh? He's not very practiced in showing emotions, ya see. And I think all the blood rushin' too his face could be bad, y'know?"

That idiot. Could he get away with shoving the dead-last into the hole he had just cleared out and covering it back up? Sasuke did a quick survey of his surroundings and noted, dejectedly, that there were just too many witnesses. He'd never be able to convince anybody that it had been an accident, especially since the dead-last would probably put up a fight.

"The blond is right, girls." A voice called from behind him and Sasuke turned to see a rather stern looking woman leaning against the Senju bastard. They were slowly picking their way through the remains of the fallen building and more than once the Senju had to stop and reposition the older woman. "Leave your heroes alone until they're old enough to know what to do with those muscles you were tittering on about." The Senju's face was tomato red as she handed the woman identified as "mother" over to the group of women and slumped forward.

Was the Senju bastard so exhausted after a fairly simply clean up? Pathetic. Sasuke remembered reading about the chakra net jutsu and while it was classified as a C-rank, the classification had more to do with the control it took to execute such a jutsu and not the amount of chakra it used up. He had been surprised, really, when the Senju had mentioned she knew it. Even more so when she had managed to manipulate the jutsu to where it not only scanned the top layer of the buildings they were clearing but also the floors below. However, the annoying little twit was the top kunoichi of their class so it only made sense that she had at least some skill.

"That's it." The Senju bastard wheezed and Sasuke felt the thin threads of her chakra wash over him once more, a feeling that he had become peculiarly used to over the last half hour. Then the feeling sputtered out and whatever string had been holding her up was cut and she crumpled. It wasn't until after he had one of her arms pulled across his shoulders and an arm wrapped around her waist to steady her from falling forward into a hole of rubble that Sasuke realized he had just wasted a prime opportunity to rid himself of at least one of his teammates. Damnit.

"Hey Sasuke-bastard!" The dead-last shouted and then leapt over towards them. "Hehehe. That was a good catch, bastard. Do ya think she's okay?"

"How am I supposed to know, you idiot. Do I look like a medic?" A broken chuckle sounded from his side and he looked over to see that the ridiculous kunoichi was conscious once more.

"Terrible bed side manners, Nurse Uchiha." She wheezed and at that point Sasuke was all too happy to hand her over to the dead-last and complete the all-clear jutsu.

"Heya Sakura-chan." The dead-last murmured from behind him, "are ya okay?" And then, "Sakura-chan you're sooo heeaavvyy."

"I'm fine, Uzumaki. Just tired. And hungry." With a bit more heat, "and I'm not heavy. It's the training weights, you moron!"

Training weights? How had he not noticed this earlier? Sasuke gave her another once over and decided that training weights or no, if she was so completely useless now, she really wasn't much of threat. The dead-last gave him a questioning look when Sasuke came to mimic him on the other side of the Senju, supporting the other half of her weight.

"Hn. Don't look at me like that, dead-last. The faster we report back to Jiro-san the faster we get the answers we came here for, the faster I'm rid of you two."

"Ya know, bastard," the orange clad boy grumbled, "ya almost had it. And then ya went back to your normal bastardly self."

"Almost had what, dead-last?"

"Oh, I don't know. A spark of humanity?!"

"Uzumaki, your screeching is making my headache worse."

"Oh, sorry, Sakura-chan!"

"Hn." Like shouting an apology right into her ear was going to help? He was surrounded by idiots. Pathetic, useless, idiots.

They found Jiro-san squatting over the remains of his old place examining a group of boards that looked like they hadn't been completely cured during the lumbering process. Branches and twigs sprouted from each individual piece and came together to form a knotted mess of wood, and was that a grouping of leaves there?

"What's so interesting about that, Crazy-jiji?" The dead-last managed to catch Jiro-san's attention with his question. When the older man stood up and looked towards them, kabuki makeup long since smeared and yakuta in fabulous disarray, panic settled into his features as he took in the state that the Senju was in.

"Sakura-chan," he said with an earnest inflection. "Tell me everything that you're experiencing right now."  


What? She was obviously just a weak kunoichi that was experiencing fatigue, right?

"I'm fine Jiro-san." The Senju muttered and went about extracting herself from both his and the dead-last's grips.

"Oi, oi. Crazy-jiji, Sakura-chan said she was just tired and hungry. Oh! And she said somethin' 'bout having a headache!" The last of his explanation was cut off as the Senju buried her fingers into blond locks and pulled. Sasuke couldn't help the smirk that spread across his face at that.

"Uzumaki, I'm fine!"

"Ow ow ow! Sakura-chan! Why're ya bein' so mean?"

"I'll show you mean, Uzumaki! Just you wait!"

"Sakura-chan wait! Ow, ow, ow! Don't twist your hand like that. That's my hair, Sakura-chan!"

"Uchiha-kun," Jiro-san called and Sasuke was forced to turn away from the sight of the dead-last whimpering like an idiot. "She seems a bit livelier now, doesn't she? Anyways, Uchiha-kun, Sakura-chan is suffering from a mild case of chakra exhaustion."

"Hn. Pathetic." So, he had been right, the extraction from the sinkhole had been too much for her.

"And why would you say that, Uchiha-kun?" Jiro-san was watching him like a hawk now.

"Because. She barely even used any chakra."

"Hmm. As you say, Uchiha-kun." And then Jiro-san was looking pointedly at the lump of wood that he had been examining earlier. Sasuke noticed with a start that there were similar pieces spread throughout the rest of the sight, small twisted amounts of wood taking shape out of walls and staircases. Jiro-san must of have noticed him noticing because he then said, "perhaps you should visit your clan's library, Uchiha-kun, before you make any assumptions about your teammates skills."

"Jiro-san!" The Senju had ran back towards the older man and was now panting. Wait. Was the lipstick on her cheek? And why were her clothes in such disarray? "Jiro-san," she repeated after she had made another desperate gulp for air, "I think we should be leaving soon but my teammates and I have some questions about our jounin-sensei."

Sasuke was unable to hear the rest of the conversation because just as Jiro-san had been about to reply, warm arms wrapped around from his back and pulled him into something soft. There was a feminine squeal and then a shout of "girls, I found the other one!" before Sasuke was completely swarmed. He was surrounded by too much skin, too much noise, and too much musky perfume. What in the holy hell? The first pair of lips landed on his cheek and Uchiha do not show emotion. Uchiha do not show emotion.

If he could just get his hands free, then he would be able to perform the substitution jutsu and escape. Oh gods, why were they tugging at his shirt? This was unacceptable and his teammates held all the blame. He was just working up the mental fortitude to fight his way back up, civilian or not if one more person touched him he was going to destroy them, when a sharp whistle rent the air and everyone fell away from him. His Uchiha pride demanded that he not offer up a thank you, but he was at least going to acknowledge the person who had put an end to his embarrassment, until he saw the smirking jounin's face.

He was a great deal taller than Sasuke himself with a black bandana displaying his hitai-ate wrapped around his head and senbon wiggling up and down between the smug pull of his lips. He had both the Senju bastard and the dead-last by the back of the neck and was staring down at him expectantly. "Is this your teammate, kids?"

How dare he! Sasuke was going to beat that chuckle right out of him!

"Ah, yes. Thank you, jounin-san." The jounin released his grasp on the Senju's neck but his palm came to rest on the top of her pink head and he said;

"No problem, cutie. But you can call me Genma." And did he just wink? That was it. Sasuke was going rip his voice box out, and then his eye, and the he was going to kill his teammates. Both of them. Horrifically.

"You're a pervert!" The dead-last squawked and then pulled the Senju away from the jounin.

"Hey kid, I wouldn't scream that too loud, if I were you. After all, I did just rescue you and both of your teammates from the cloying grasps of several hordes of half-naked women. Don't think that I don't know how much each of you were enjoying that."

Idiots. He was surrounded by idiots. "Senju!" He snapped.

"Yes, Uchiha?"

"Did you get the information?" If this had all been for nothing he was going to skin her alive and then kill her. Horrifically.

"Yeah, yeah! Sakura-chan, did Crazy-jiji tell ya anything about Kaka-sensei?"

The stupid jounin was now doubled over laughing, senbon lodged in the ground between his sandals. "Wait! You three were here trying to get information on Kakashi? Kakashi Hatake? Oh man. This is just too priceless. Hey Raidou," he called over his shoulder. "You've got to hear this!"

"Uzumaki, Uchiha, let's go." And that was just fine with him. They could have whatever discussion they needed to have as far away from this damned place as they could get.

Above the calls of "goodbye" and "make sure you come back soon" and "you too Sakura-chan, you're so cute!", Jiro-san's voice could be heard.

"Make sure Sakura-chan gets plenty of food and rest, Uchiha-kun. I'm holding you personally responsible!" Why was he responsible?

"Hn."

They had just managed to turn the corner and were no longer inside of the red-light district when the senbon-chewing jounin landed in front of them.

"Don't forget, kids, the lot of you will need to fill out an incident report and file it at the Hokage's office." And just when Sasuke thought that they were finally going to be free, the jounin turned back around and added, "you three did a good job tonight. Working as a team. Remember that."


	4. Chapter 4

“Ah-ha! There he is, Raidou. I told you he’d still be here by the time we got off.” Kakashi sighed and slid further down into the booth as his ‘friends’ voice echoed throughout the establishment. No doubt the notorious flirt had heard through the jounin rumor mill how the three little genin hopefuls had duped him earlier that afternoon.

And here had been, hoping for nothing more than a nice and quiet evening of drinking at his preferred establishment. Perhaps if he feigned non-interest he’d be left alone?

“Heya, Asuma, Kurenai, Anko! Get over here, I’ve got a story to tell. And bring the alcohol!” As chairs were pulled out and room was made it became clear to Kakashi that there was very little chance of him getting out of this.

Anko slammed a bottle down on the table and leaned forward just enough to highlight all her more lascivious assets and Kakashi had to admit that she had all that seduction business down quite well. “Well, let’s hear it, asshole!” That was, until she opened her mouth and all that foul came tumbling out.

“So Raidou and I were returning from our last patrol and all of that when we happened across a situation in the red-light district,” before Genma could continue he was interrupted by Asuma.

“I’m sure you happened across all kinds of situations there, Shiranui.” Laughter broke out across the group at that statement and Genma just smirked and let it play out.

“Anyways,” the senbon-chewing nin started again after everything had died down, “while we were there we came across the cutest little genin team. Kakashi, my man, you would be so proud!”

Kakashi snapped his book closed and tucked it into his kunai pouch. Kurenai was glaring daggers at him from across the table and if this story was going where he feared it would, the orange cover of his most prized possession was an inviting target. 

This was going to be so troublesome.

“Ah. I’m sure that I have no idea what it is you’re talking about, Genma.” He had his suspicions, of course, but they had yet to be confirmed. 

If he didn’t get to the bottom of this situation soon, Kakashi would be forced to defend himself against a very irate, red-eyed, kunoichi. Asuma didn’t look like he would bother holding her back for much longer.

“Genma…” Kakashi growled, demanding an explanation.

“All right, all right.” Said jounin waved his hands in front of his face, “jeez, take all of the fun out of it, why don’t you. A sinkhole opened in the red-light district. Destroyed a couple of buildings, impacted a couple of businesses, but nobody was seriously injured. The interesting part is…”

The pause for dramatic effect was completely unnecessary, in Kakashi’s opinion, but he went along with it.

“By the time that Raidou and I had gotten there, most of the work had already been done. Evacuations taken care of, at least. Turns out the emergency responders were none other than your kids, Kakashi. And get this: the only reason why they were in the red-light district in the first place was because they were trying to gather information on their ‘Kaka-sensei’!”

Damn. Kakashi had actually really been hoping that his hunch had been wrong. “Hm. And what information were they able to gather, Genma?” The intrigue was back, at least.

“Oh. Not much from what I overheard. You see, when Raidou and I arrived on the scene, the working ladies were showing your team their, ah, appreciation. For all the hard work and that, you know.” There was twinkle in brown eyes as Genma lifted the saucer that had been placed in front of him and took a swig.

“Even the Senju?” Of course, Anko would be the one to ask that question.

“Especially the Senju. It was hilarious. That girl had more lipstick on her than both boys combined. I’m surprised that any of them were able to walk out of there in a straight line: the amount of blood in their faces when I managed to pry off the hordes of admirers would have left even our porn-reading Copy-nin dizzy.”

“Wait! There,” Anko was having a hard time talking through all of the laughing she was doing. “There were hordes? And you, you had to pry them off?”

“Oh yeah,” Genma embellished. “It was like every worker from every brothel was out on the street swarming around this genin team.”

“Hm.” His not-quite-yet genin were an interesting bunch. He still wasn’t going to go lightly on them during the test tomorrow, however.

oOo

“Senju, I swear that if you pass out again before we get to that damned ramen stand, I will string you up by your toes and light you on fire.” Sakura really was not in the mood to put up with the Uchiha’s mouth.

“Hey Sasuke-bastard, stop being such an asshole.”

“Shut up, dead-last, and at least help.” There was a tugging on Sakura’s arms and then she was lifted once more. She had no idea what in the world was happening, she had never felt this feeble in her life, but she did not like it.  


She had collapsed the first time not even an hour before, when they had finished evacuating the sinkhole, but afterwards she had regained at least a little of her strength and had been able to walk halfway to their determined dinner spot. Then the utter fatigue had hit and left her twice as miserable as before.

“Why,” Uzumaki grunted as he pulled her left arm over his shoulder, “do ya even care, you bastard? If you’re so against helping why don’tcha just leave?”

The Uchiha sounded just as strained when he answered, “because, dead-last. That maniac announced that he was holding me personally responsible for making sure that the Senju,” another grunt as her right arm was settled across another pair of shoulders, “was fed. If something happens to her now, I’ll be the one who gets blamed and I don’t trust you to take care of her.”

“Whatever, bastard. Why is she getting heavier? I mean, I know she said she had on them weights an’ all, but I don’t remember them being this heavy before. Ya know?” Uzumaki really did complain too much, and she was so tired. She just wanted to close her eyes and sleep. Sleep sounded good.

She was jerked out of the dark, fuzzy, warm place by the fingers that were pinching her chin. “Listen here, Senju,” ah, Sasuke-bastard. She wanted to look up into his eyes and see if he could shoot fire out of them yet but as soon as his face came into focus it drifted away again. “Sakura!” It was hearing her name on his lips that shocked her back just enough to understand what he was saying. “You need to stop filtering chakra around your training weights, Sakura.”

Had to stop filtering chakra? Training weights? 

Oh.

Closing her eyes, Sakura turned inwards and tried to hunt down the normally large pool of her chakra. What she found was nothing short of alarming and explained why she felt so useless. What was usually a large reservoir had been reduced to nothing more than a saucer full. It took some concentration, especially since she had to work around the pounding in her head, but she was able to slowly pull whatever was left back out from around her training weights and cease the action completely. She knew she had been successful when her head cleared slightly and she heard both of her teammates curse at the unexpected extra weight that they now bore.

“Damn, Sakura-chan,” Uzumaki panted. “Alright, Sasuke-bastard, on the count of three!”

“Just try not to drop her, dead-last. Or throw your back out.” Uchiha grumbled and then there were two arms, one belonging to each of her teammates, slipping between her inner thighs and around, gripping as much leg as they could, before she was hefted bodily off the ground. There was a moment in which Sakura thought that they were going to drop her, both boys were shaking from the strain, but then they pulled her arms over their shoulders a little more tightly and trudged on.

“Thanks,” it came out as a horse whisper but she was sure that Uzumaki and Uchiha had heard it.

“No problem, Sakura-chan. Hey, what kind of weights were ya’ wearing? I mean, why’d they get so much heavier after you stopped your chakra?”

She was saved from answering when the Uchiha took it upon himself. Really, his need to show off could come in handy in similar situations: her mouth and throat felt like she had swallowed a cup of sand.

“They’re a special kind of training weight that were designed to increase speed and strength along with chakra control, dead-last. They require a constant and exact stream of chakra through different seals to maintain a certain weight. The more chakra you use, or the less steady, the lighter the weights. The less chakra, or more precise, the heavier the weights.”

“Didn’t know you could talk so much, Uchiha.” Sakura had to clear her throat three times while she spoke.

“Hn.”

“Oi bastard. That was a good explanation. Believe it. Heya, Sakura-chan? Do you think that I might be able to look at those seals, sometime?” It made sense. Lately, any time that she had bothered to pay the Uzumaki any notice, the boy had had his nose buried in a scroll or book dedicated to fuinjutsu. Of course he would be interested in the seals that Uchiha had just described.

“Sure, Uzumaki. I’ve actually got an old set at my house that you can just have.” She wasn’t using them anymore and giving them to her teammate sounded like much less of a hassle than selling them back to whom she had gotten them from.

“Really? Thanks, Sakura-chan. You’re so nice! Oh look, ya guys! We’re here!”

Nobody heard the creaking of the stool that her teammates deposited her on over Uzumaki’s chants of ‘ramen’, but Sakura felt the piece of furniture want to give out. Maybe, if she sat as motionless as possible, everything would be okay. 

After Teuchi-san, the owner of Ichiraku’s whom Uzumaki had introduced them to earlier that day, took their orders, Sakura turned towards her teammates and let out a sigh. “Jiro-san wasn’t able to tell me much about  
Kakashi-sensei’s test tomorrow, but he did give me some information.”

“Did he even give you a hint about what the test could be?” Uchiha questioned, the usual smarminess absent from his voice.

“No. He said something about how each individual jounin had an individual test and that even if he did know something about a test, using information about one to help us figure out the goal for another would be useless.”

“Hn.” The Uchiha looked almost as tired as she felt. They were completely filthy, covered head to toe in drywall dust and pieces of what used to be businesses. Sakura had mud caked under her fingernails from when she had helped the boys dig and there was a gooey, half dried substance caked on her face that pulled when she frowned. After examining the boys, she noticed that they had smears of several different shades of lipstick on both of their cheeks and Sakura shuddered. That was so gross. Of course, she had been promising her stool that she would not move for the last several minutes so she resisted the urge to reach up with her sleeves and scrub at her face.

“Well that sucks, you guys. What did Crazy-jiji tell ya, Sakura-chan? Maybe we could use some of that information?”

“Not much, Uzumaki. Just that, despite his appearance, Kakashi Hatake is some sort of legendary shinobi. I guess he holds the record for the earliest Academy graduation and he was a student of the Yondaime. He was a big player in the war,” Sakura shrugged. Uzumaki looked like he was lost in his own thoughts and Uchiha was slumped over the counter with his head resting on an upturned fist.

“So, basically, what you’re saying Senju, is that all of tonight was a waste?”

“You’re the one who wanted to tag along like a lost puppy, Uchiha.”

“Yeah. Because I thought that you would find something useful. I guess this is what I get for thinking that you could be anything other than pathetic, Senju.” There was no real heat in Uchiha’s words, just a resigned sort of acceptance, so she ignored them and moved to rest her forehead against the cooled wooden bar of the ramen stand. Chakra exhaustion was a bitch.

oOo

The neat little boxes he had built up around his teammates just weren’t fitting anymore and Sasuke Uchiha was peeved. They were supposed to be – not dumb, precisely – but not intelligent. They were supposed to weak, useless, and utterly annoying. And while he had found no argument against the latter, the two of them together could drive a deity of patience to insanity, he had been forced to reconsider the former.

Because Senju had memorized the guidelines (and then had had the gall to throw it in his face), and Uzumaki had managed to completely disable him (and then had proposed a truce of all things), and Senju had obviously been training quite seriously in taijutsu for quite some time (somebody didn’t just decide to pick up those caliber of weights and them wear them the same day), and Uzumaki had been nothing but efficient during the evacuation (unable to perform any of the necessary jutsu but producing an army of clones to help dig out and then direct the civilians). 

Sasuke had already decided to take Jiro-sans recommendation to heart when, last night while carrying the Senju home after she had splintered the stool she had been sitting on, his teammates had engaged in a conversation about fuinjutsu of all things that he had been utterly unable to follow. He hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep last night.  


Sasuke had had little reason to visit the main houses library, a grand room filled from top to bottom with scrolls and books alike, over the years. Especially since that night: a large majority of the material housed on the shelves were copies of birth certificates and land agreements for every Uchiha that had ever resided within the compound walls, and Sasuke had found that being surrounded by the names of all the people he had lost was not a feeling he was willing to subject himself to if there wasn’t a need.

The empty streets and blood-stained floors were enough, thank you very much.

There was a separate library, located beneath the shrine, that contained the more sensitive information on individuals of the Uchiha clan along with everything that had ever been recorded about the Sharingan, a room that Sasuke had not yet been able to access (his father would have taught him the jutsu as soon as he had activated his own Sharingan), but the Uchiha elders had been laxer in their measures to protect whatever information they had gathered concerning Konohagakure’s other clans.

He had been able to find the group of scrolls labelled ‘Senju’ after only a handful of minutes searching, and then because he had been curious, he had also located the ones dedicated to ‘Uzumaki’. It had been pure lack of coordination that had led him to knocking over a pile of books and unearthing a tome that looked exactly like what the dead-last had been reading in the classroom before they had set off towards the Hokage Tower, although slightly less worn around the edges. Sasuke had picked that up too, because if even the dead-last and the traitor’s bastard seemed like they knew the basics of fuinjutsu, then he refused to be anything less.

And then, what had started as a simple self-appointed mission to glean information, had turned into something more. Considering how the rest of his night had gone, he shouldn’t have been surprised.

He had opened the fuinjutsu book first and had quickly discovered that he was dipping his toes into a much larger pool than he had originally assumed. Between his ever-growing levels of irritation, Sasuke had to admit to himself that the book really was quite amazing. Even with as thick as it was, every page was hand written and Sasuke had discovered that it was an interactive lesson book on fuinjutsu. At the end of each section, Sasuke had been forced to demonstrate his understanding of what the previous chapter had explained, the first lesson being as simple as channeling chakra into the pages. Every time a step was completed correctly it was like a piece of the puzzle was unlocked and words would appear seemingly out of nowhere and fill the pages for the next chapter. Skipping ahead was futile, as the later chapters had not yet been unlocked and the pages remained blank.

Sasuke had made it only three chapters in, the first chapter on actual fuinjutsu theory, before he had been stumped. He had spent a good three hours hunched over the words and reading them over and over again before he had closed it with a decisive snap and moved on.

He had been halfway through reading the first scroll in the ‘Senju’ pile when everything had fallen into place and Sasuke had felt like an idiot. Of course! Hashirama Senju, Hashirama trees, Hashirama wood-release! Sakura Senju, the weird clumps of wood that had been scattered about the rubble in the sinkhole, Jiro-sans knowing look, her chakra exhaustion.

The story of the Founding was one of the first lessons that they had had in the Academy, Hashirama Senju one of the first people they had learned about. Had his teammate managed to awaken a kekkei genkai that had been dormant since the First Hokage? And how could that idiot have not known?

After that realization, Sasuke had abandoned the library completely and retired to his room to write up his incident report.

“Oi! Sasuke-bastard! You’re here early.” Was there any time of the day that the dead-last was not yelling? Probably not.

“Hn.” The receptionist for the Filing Department was shooting them both a dirty look and Sasuke glared at her cup of coffee. She was obviously more caffeinated and ready for the day than he, so why was she looking at him like it was his fault that his teammate was so obnoxious? Didn’t she know that genin had no choice in these things?

“Yeah, yeah, bastard. Good morning to you too, an’ all that. You look shittier than usual, by the way.” Did that menace just cut in front of him in the line? A line that he had been waiting in for the last fifteen minutes? He was going to slaughter the dead-last and then burn the bloody pieces of that damned jumpsuit and then feed the ashes to the ugliest aquatic creature in Mist that he could find.

“Uzumaki,” the growl in his voice was intended, the eye-brow twitch, however, was not.

“Oh, for the love of all of the kami’s, why are the two of here and how was I unfortunate enough to be subjected to this so early in the morning?”

“Heya Sakura-chan! How are you feeling this morning?”

“Shove it, Senju.”

“You look like shit, Uchiha.” Sasuke shot her the dirtiest glare he could muster but he imagined that the effect was slightly dampened by the fact that he had to lean around several bodies in order to do so. And was that a finger now poking at his cheek? Sasuke swatted the tanned hand away and was only slightly satisfied with the cracking sound that resulted from the action.

“Right, Sakura-chan? He’s kind of… Paler than usual? And his hair is all weird and ‘poof’, ya know?”

“Hmm… No, Uzumaki, I’m pretty sure he’s always looked like a Basabasa.”

Did she just compare him to a fire-breathing chicken? “So says the Kudan.” There were far too many people around for him to perform his family’s fire-ball jutsu and roast them both where they stood but there had to be a way to inflict some level of pain, right? He could always claim that he was testing his skills in subterfuge, or something like that, if he were caught.

“Hey you brats!” A nameless chunin called. “It’s too damned early for the rest of us to be dragged into the drama of your little love triangle. Shut the hell up!” There was a chorus of agreements and Sasuke just couldn’t take it anymore. He was running on no sleep, his teammates were idiots, and at that moment he just wanted to be as far away from the other people in the room as he could possibly get.

Using every ounce of the speed he had trained so hard to achieve, Sasuke snatched the scroll from between the dead-last’s fingers, skipped over to the Senju bastard and relieved hers as well, and rocketed to the front of the line. He had to cut off a chunin who was about to step forward but Sasuke didn’t care. When the receptionist raised a brow, but held out her hand to receive the scrolls anyways, Sasuke was all too happy to drop the incident reports into her waiting palm and turn to walk out. The idiots were waiting for him at the door, one with crossed arms, the other with hands on hips.

“Smooth, Uchiha.”

“Did ya have to be so rude, bastard?”

He was going to kill them. “Hn.”

oOo

Sasuke really did look kind of terrible and for as much as he had enjoyed making fun of the other boy, Naruto was a little bit worried. Not because he thought that the bastard deserved anyone worrying over him, but because he remembered how sick Sakura had been the night before and there was no way he wanted a replay of that.  
Wondering if and when your teammate was going to pass out, expecting it to happen, and then experiencing it several times in one night just wasn’t fun.

“Hey guys! It’s still early, what do ya say about getting something to eat?” Food was always the answer, right?

“Do you remember anything that Kakashi said yesterday, dead-last?”

“Don’t be such a bastard,” of course he remembered. It had kept him up almost half the night, their sensei’s parting words swarming around in his head and making it virtually impossible for him to concentrate on anything else. “But I’m hungry and you look like you’re hungry and Sakura-chan is probably still getting better and I say we eat. Believe it.” So there.

“He told us not to.”

Sticks in the mud. Both of them. “Not true, Sasuke-bastard. He said, ‘if I were you I wouldn’t eat’. But he’s not us, is he? An’ if he’s as late as he was yesterday, we’ll be starving by the time he even shows up and we still don’t know what the test is gonna be. I’d rather go into it knowing that I won’t be hungry.” So extra there.  
“I don’t know, Uzumaki. What if he actually shows up on time today?”

“And what if he shows up extra late, Sakura-chan? You said so yourself, he’s supposed to be some super bad-assey ninja, right? Well, if I was on the same level as Kaka-sensei I wouldn’t let a bunch of genin push me around in any way. Especially if I knew that those genin were basically relying on me to, ya know, become actual genin.” Kakashi Hatake was probably a man who was used to getting things his way, Naruto had plenty of experience with those kinds of people, and it made sense that their teacher would run late again today just to prove a point: running to the Hokage yesterday wouldn’t have changed that.

“What chapter are you on in that book of yours, dead-last? The one you were reading yesterday.”

What? What did that have to do with breakfast? “Um, I’m really just re-reading it now, bastard. I mean, I read the whole thing last year but I needed to double check some stuff, ya know?” Wow. Sakura was right, the bastard really did look like a Basabasa.

“Fine, dead-last. But we’re getting it to go. Just because you’re willing to gamble on Kakashi being late doesn’t mean that I am.”

“Wait! You two aren’t seriously considering,” Sakura started to object but was interrupted.

“You know he has a point, Senju. Let’s go.”

Wait, what? Had the bastard agreed with him on something? Whoa.

Several hours later, leaning against the trunk of a tree and trying to find whatever refuge from the sun that he could, Naruto was beginning to think that he should have ordered more food. Seriously, bad-assey ninja or not, there was no way that their jounin sensei could get away with being this late, was there?

“Ugh. Guys, this is totally un-cool.”

“We know, Uzumaki.”

“Hn.”

“Do you think that Sasuke-bastard actually thinks we understand what he’s try’na say when he does that, Sakura-chan?”

“If only all of us could be that delightfully verbal, Uzumaki.” A sigh.

“Oh yeah, Sakura-chan. I agree.”

“She was insulting you, dead-last.”

“What? Sakura-chan, you’re so mean.” Why did it feel like his teammates were constantly ganging up on him?

“My, my! Look at my cute little genin hopefuls gathered together so close!”

“Kaka-sensei, you’re late!” Naruto was contemplating finding out where Kakashi lived and pranking the building. He bet that the jounin would be mortified if he came home one day and found that his door had been painted the same color as that book he was reading.

“Mah. I hadn’t noticed! Now, did the three of you do as I said and skip breakfast?” Naruto refused to look even a little bit guilty when the jounin’s lone eye surveyed them but he felt Sakura shifting uncomfortably at his side.  


“Ah. I see that you deemed it unnecessary to follow my advice, no matter then. Here’s the deal, kiddies: you’ve got one hour to procure one of these,” a slight jingling as the jounin lifted his fingers to reveal, “two bells. Whichever of you is left not in the possession of a bell by the time that this alarm rings, gets sent back to the Academy! Oh, and one more thing, I suggest you attack with the intent to kill, otherwise I fear you’ll just have no chance!”

The last of that sentence was said with a little too much cheer, Naruto thought. The man standing in front of him was some sort of demon-spawn sensei. This was going to suck.


	5. Chapter 5

Sakura was currently crouched behind a cluster of green leaves, half clothed, and panicking. She had just shrugged off the weighted vest, a piece of equipment that was not nearly as high-quality as the ones used on her arms and legs and therefore required no chakra, and had been in the process of securing her upper garment, a haori black in color with the Senju clan symbol embroidered in white on the back, when she had heard the Uzumaki’s pained scream echo through the tree tops.  


She had been unsurprised when her blond teammate had decided, against all logic, to remain in the clearing to challenge the jounin. Of course, she admitted, had she been in the same position of having not only her skills but her character being berated by a man whom didn’t even know her, she might have done the same.  


She needed to stop focusing on the boys and come up with a plan. She was about to test her mettle against a man who was twice her size and who hadn’t even needed to look up from his book when he put a screeching halt to Uzumaki’s first charge. She was so dead.  


She flared chakra down the length of her chakra net when she heard a rustling in the bushes off to her side hoping to detect whatever had caused the disturbance, but she found nothing. Convincing herself that it was just battle nerves, Sakura sprinted off in the directions of her sensei’s last known location. If she could get away with engaging the jounin in a short taijutsu bout without displaying the extent of her skills she would hopefully be able to gauge his defensive style and find – if not an outright opening – then at least a weakness. After that she could come back with full force, try to catch him off guard, and snatch a bell before he even noticed.  


Hopefully, of course. Hope was the only thing she was running off at this point: hope that he didn’t completely cripple her in the first seconds; hope that neither one of the boys had managed to grab a bell; hope that her hastily constructed plan worked.  


“A shinobi must always be aware of their surroundings,” the whisper in her ear had Sakura jumping several inches off the ground before she turned and automatically sunk low into a standard defense. She had cast aside the chakra net only seconds before and either the jounin had noticed or he had just been that lucky in his timing. Considering the way Jiro-san had spoken of the silver haired man the night before – with clear reverence – Sakura was willing to bet on the former.  


“Alright, Kaka-sensei,” she ground between teeth that had been clenched together to muffle the screech that had wanted to escape, “you’re going down!”  


“You know, Sakura-chan, both of your cute little teammates said almost exactly the same thing. And yet here I am!”  


Wait. She had known that Uzumaki had already tried to get a bell, but the Uchiha had as well? A quick scan confirmed that both jingling pieces of metal were still there, which meant that the both of them had failed. And that was a good thing, really it was, because now it was her turn and two targets were better than one when it came to enacting her shit-storm of a hopeful plan, but a miniature voice in the back of her brain was worried. Because the slouched man in front of her who resembled little more than a seasoned sloth happened to be a war veteran and a jounin and who knew what kind of condition he had left the two idiots in.  


“Well now, Sakura-chan,” the jounin sighed as he flipped another page in his book, “since you insist on being so woefully cliché, let’s get this over with, shall we?”  


It was the irritation of being completely brushed off that had Sakura sprinting forward and taking a swipe at the jounin’s masked face with all the speed and strength she could muster, plan be damned. Because she was about forty-five kilograms’ lighter, all of the speed and strength she could muster proved to be a bit too much and she easily overshot her target. All Kakashi-sensei had to do was flash-step to the side and she was left barreling past him, heals dug in and balance compromised, until she finally skidded to a stop several yards later.  


“My, my. You are a clumsy one, aren’t you?” Sakura was going to throttle the nonchalance out of him.  


“I’ll show you clumsy, you smug bastard,” she growled and then pounced. She started with the Academy style offence, even with her mind saturated with hate Sakura knew that she had already revealed one of her trump cards and she was unwilling to slip up again, and he annihilated her. All while reading that damned book and without lifting a single finger to attack her back. All her kicks were dodged, all of her punches were redirected, and the entire time he was angled in such a way that she couldn’t even make a desperate lunge for the bells.  


After her first embarrassing attack, Sakura had realized that she needed time to adjust to her newfound prowess and so had gradually been increasing her tempo as she went until she was going all out. She was moving faster than she ever had before, her limbs a blur as she tried to pick apart his defense or find a weakness (of which there were none) and he still had the time to flip another page in that orange book. He hadn’t even looked at her.  


She was giving this fight everything that she had and it barely even registered with him. It shouldn’t upset her as much as it did. Kakashi Hatake was, after all, a jounin of Konohagakure and he had been serving as an active shinobi for longer than she had been alive. He had probably sparred with a hundred of his peers using the Academy style, could probably predict whatever she was going to do based solely on his knowledge of the katas and the various ways they could be combined to form an attack.  


But it wasn’t the fact that she was losing that was bothering her, was it?  


No.  


It was the fact that he was ignoring her. He was treating her like every other adult in the village: like a traitor’s bastard. And she was sick of it.  


She started with a painfully obvious forward lunge – a perfectly mimicked Academy stance – but when he brought his arm up in a hinged motion to sweep her attack to the side, Sakura used the momentum of the impact to carry through a transition. If the Academy taught taijutsu wasn’t enough to catch his attention, she would just have to switch it up, wouldn’t she?  


Her lead was reversed, her center of gravity was lower to the ground, her palms were now open, and the next sequence of attacks she orchestrated consisted of using both her hands and her feet as anchors while she targeted his knees: all four of her limbs snaking out at odd intervals and her failed attacks acting as forward momentum. She probably looked like a very acrobatic spider-monkey chasing after a flighty bird and Sakura was all too aware how easy it would be for the jounin, with his extended height and reach, to launch a counter attack that would leave her completely incapacitated but she didn’t care because he was finally looking at her.  


His book was still out, sure, but he wasn’t focused on the pages and that gave Sakura the little extra boost that she needed to complete the vicious leg sweep that had him leaping up and away. This was going to be her only chance and Sakura didn’t even have to think when she changed her stance once more and launched herself towards his projected landing spot, one arm pulled back with a fisted hand and the other reaching for the space that the bells would be if only for a fraction of a second before the jounin adjusted. She was actually going to pull this off. Holy shit.  


And then something very solid was connecting across her side, something inside of her made a crunching sound, and she was sent flying into the trunk of a tree that rattled on impact and Sakura was met with red-hot agony. In reality the entire exchange hadn’t lasted longer than two minutes, tops, but she felt like she had been fighting for an eternity.  


“Is that all you’ve got, Sakura-chan? Well. I must say, I’m a bit disappointed. The boys at least managed to touch a bell each.” He was back to giving his full attention to that damned book! “Mah. I suppose that if you’re done now, I’ll go find somewhere nice and shady to continue my reading. A tip, before I go? Seeing as how this very well may be the only lesson you receive from me before you’re sent back to the Academy…”  


“There’s still time. The alarm hasn’t rung yet.” It was so hard to breath.  


“As you say, Sakura-chan. I’m still going to say: it is very unwise to enter a battle and use a technique that you have little to no formal training in. Ja ne, Sakura-chan.” And then he was just gone.  


And that was just dandy, wasn’t it? Because she was pretty sure that a couple of her ribs were at least cracked and her shoulder ached something fierce. And Uchiha and Uzumaki had both managed to touch a bell and she hadn’t even come close and what had all her extra training been for if she couldn’t even compete against a couple of idiots who never seemed to put any effort into anything other than being overly obnoxious and overly self-centered? Had the jounin really needed to leave with that parting jab? She had managed to surprise him, hadn’t she?  


The tears that escaped from between her lashes were a mixture of frustration and pain as Sakura used the tree she had landed on to pull herself back up. If the boys were just so much better, then they could help her destroy that jounin.  


Every step she took jostled her shoulder which resulted in more tears but Sakura didn’t stop. She found them in a nearby clearing, Uchiha buried up to his neck in the ground and Uzumaki rolling around like a toddler and laughing.  


“What happened to you, Senju?”  


“I could ask the same, Uchiha.” When she crouched down so she was as eye-level with the bastard as she could get, Sakura couldn’t suppress the small whimper that left her lips. Everything just hurt so much. Uzumaki was there within the next blink, his earnest blue eyes scanning her from head to toe.  


“Heya, Sakura-chan, are you okay?” And how many times had he needed to ask her that question in the last twenty-four hours? Too many.  


“I have a proposal for the two of you.”  


“What?”  


“Yeah, Sakura-chan?”  


“All of us have tried, and failed, to get a bell. There can’t be that much more time left before that damned alarm goes off…”  


“You want to team up?”  


“Yeah, basically, Uzumaki. That’s what I’m saying.”  


“No.” Damned Uchiha.  


“Well. If you’re so against it then, Uchiha, I guess that Uzumaki and I can just leave you here to dig yourself out of that hole! When you do manage to free yourself, you should probably just start walking back to the Academy because by that time there won’t be a bell left for you!”  


“Yeah right. What can you two do that I can’t? The dead-last is the dead-last for a reason and your shoulder is obviously dislocated. It doesn’t matter if you guys are working together or not, you’re still going to fail.” The Uchiha was neck deep in the dirt and he still managed to look down his nose at her. How did he do that? He was just so irritating!  


“He’s right, Sakura-chan. I mean… I tried really hard the first time and I didn’t even come close, ya know?”  


Since when did Uzumaki not act like he could conquer the world? Her boisterous teammate had been replaced with a meek little blond boy. “Then we’ll try again, together.” The words came out of her mouth yet even Sakura was having a hard time believing them.  


“Yeah. But… How? I mean, you’re really good, Sakura-chan, believe it! But with your arm all messed up… And the only thing I really know are traps but I used them in the classroom, ya know? Which means,”  


“that he already knows them. Damnit, Uzumaki!”  


“Pathetic.” The Uchiha had resumed his struggling but the only result was a cloud of dust that had risen from the top layer of soil.  


Did she still have time to try again, without help? Would she even come close this time?  


“How about… Well. I’ve got an idea, believe it! But we’re gonna need some help, Sakura-chan.”  


“No. No way, dead-last.”  


They were wasting time! “Just shut up, Uchiha, and listen!”  


“Why? So we can come up with a plan together? And if we do, and if it works, then there’s still the problem of which of us gets the bells. There are only two, remember?”  


“If we get the bells now, before the alarm goes off, then we can decide that after. Really, Sasuke-bastard. Just listen, will ya?”

  


oOo  


  


Naruto found that planning with his clones was completely different than planning with Sakura and Sasuke. The biggest of these differences happened to be the fact that his teammates weren’t… Well. They weren’t essentially him. Naruto’s clones were practically carbon copies of himself and therefore understood exactly what he was trying to say before he had even finished the sentence but while working with Sakura and Sasuke he found himself agonizing over every little detail.  


The three of them, individually, had lost the element of surprise during their one on one confrontations so the challenge had been to find ways in which they could incorporate their mismatched skills into an attack that the jounin wouldn’t expect. Added to that was the fact that they still hadn’t decided who out of the three of them would be sans a bell at the end of it all, and Naruto was having a hard time.  


A lot of what they were about to try was good, in theory, but the maneuvers depended heavily on combined techniques that they hadn’t had the time to practice and trust. If one of them messed up, if one of them decided to ditch the plan and advance on their own, then the other two would be left blowing in the wind.  


Sakura signaled that the target was directly ahead – part of the deal included Sasuke relocating her shoulder after he was dug out – and Naruto didn’t have time to think. This was their last chance and practice (trust) or not, they needed to succeed. If they got the bells before the alarm went off, they would have plenty of time afterwards to duke it out and choose who among them would be sent back to the Academy. Hopefully.  


Naruto summoned forth as many clones as he dared, ordered half of them to henge into copies of his raven-haired teammate and the pinkette, and attack. Sasuke and Sakura would be creating clones of their own and giving similar instructions, Naruto knew (hoped), but he couldn’t focus on that because he felt the net that Sakura had been maintaining shift and he had to be there to complete the next step of the plan.  


He had no idea how she had managed to pull it off, especially since she was hidden somewhere amidst the clones, but Sakura had split her chakra-net in two and was using it to highlight the directions that the jounin was most likely to flee. Naruto took the left, Sasuke took the right, and almost simultaneously they shot off several kunai attached to ninja wire that embedded themselves into trees on the opposite side of the clearing.  


“Move, dead-last!” One of Sasuke’s clones yanked the spool of wire from his hands and Naruto substituted himself with one of the clones that had circled around behind the jounin at the start of the attack.  


The bastard had sounded almost confident when he had told them that he would be able to pull off the never-before-tried-jutsu and Naruto had to trust that his teammate could do so because he himself was about to attempt a never-before-tried-jutsu that his teammates trusted him with. Even though Hokage-jiji had warned against it, Naruto had been experimenting with seals for years now and he was almost positive that the one he was currently focusing on would work.  


There was a great whooshing sound and then Naruto felt the heat as Sasuke and the clone completed the jutsu and two literal walls of fire rose from the wires and blocked off any escape routes. His jutsu had worked after all, which meant that Naruto's needed too as well.  


The number of clones that were surrounding the Cyclops had reduced drastically since Naruto had last checked and Sakura was no longer maintaining the henge that made her appear as Sasuke. His teammate was moving so fast but the jounin was matching her in speed almost easily and now it all depended on her because Sasuke had done his part and Naruto was pretty sure that he had done his as well but he couldn’t know for sure until Sakura managed to force their sensei close enough to the seal structure for him to activate.  


As if she had somehow sensed his doubts, Naruto watched as the pinkette increased her pace and footwork which resulted in a spectacular round-house kick that was blocked by the jounin’s crossed arms. He could only imagine the frustration that Sakura was feeling, obviously the girl had been meaning to break the older man’s face, but it didn’t matter because the jounin was still sliding backwards and as soon as the sole of a sandal ghosted over the outermost ring of the seal, Naruto twisted his fingers together in a familiar formation and “activate!”.  


The chakra ink reacted instantaneously and the sheer amount of concentration that it required to keep the seal active was giving Naruto a headache, but for now the jounin couldn’t move and that was perfect. “Now, Sakura!” He ordered. “I can’t hold this for much longer,” he explained as she half ran, half hobbled forward but before she could reach out and claim their prize a blur of blue and black cut her off.  


Sasuke… had abandoned his post? Granted, the fire walls had become sort of void as soon as Naruto had activated the seal, but Sasuke’s actions shocked Naruto enough that his control wavered and the structure dimmed. Damnit. Their sensei was mobile once more and the jounin wasted no time in retaliating. A solid backhand across the face had Naruto air-born before he had even finished the sequence of hand signs and he barely managed to shout out “Shadow-clone jutsu!” through the blood that was pooling around his tongue.  


The next couple of seconds were filled with distorted images and half formed thoughts as the demon sensei tore through Naruto’s clones and he was assaulted with the feedback. Sakura and Sasuke were still in the clearing but the jounin was advancing on them at a frightening speed and even if he hadn’t been completely overwhelmed by his clone army’s dispersal, Naruto was too far away to do anything.  


The sound of the alarm ringing brought just as much dread as it did relief: did Sasuke still have the bells? Had he managed to escape the slaughter? It was nigh impossible to see anything through the smoke that had just started to settle in the clearing and Naruto’s head was throbbing so painfully that standing up was out of the question.  


Doubled over and with hands clutching at his temples, Naruto watched as the smoke dissipated and revealed a scene that looked to be frozen in time: Sasuke was hanging by both arms from the branch of a tree and staring down – wide eyed – at where Kakashi-sensei was holding Sakura captive with a hand fisted into her pink braid and a kunai at her throat.  


“Now, Sasuke. Hand over the bells or your teammate dies.” What in the world was happening? The jounin wouldn’t really do that, would he?  


“Don’t you dare, Uchiha.” Naruto felt his stomach turn when the demon sensei wrenched Sakura’s head back to further expose her throat and she whimpered.  


“The alarm went off. The test is over.” Spitting out a mouthful of blood and standing on wobbly knees, Naruto inched around the jounin until he was standing below and to the side of the bastard who was still hanging from the branch.  


“Hm. Is that so? Well, I’m changing the rules. Tick-tock, Sasuke.”  


“Give him the bells, bastard.”  


“Shut up, Uzumaki.” A thin line of red had opened on Sakura’s neck and Naruto really wished that she would stop talking. “This is just another test, you two. Uchiha, give the second bell to Uzumaki and then the both of you get the hell out of here.”  


“Don’t listen to her, bastard. He’s obviously fucking crazy! Sakura-chan’s life is worth more than a test. Give him the bells.”  


“Tell me, Sakura, would you really sacrifice your chance of passing, your life, for your teammates?” The jounin spoke in an easy drawl but the kunai was still pressed against the girl’s throat and Naruto was drowning in the killing intent that the older man was exuding.  


“If it means that you lose? Fuck yes.”  


Wrong answer. Wrong, wrong, answer. He needed to think! There had to be some way to get them out of this situation…  


“It’s not going to come to that.” There was a light creaking and a muffled swoosh as Sasuke released his hold on the branch and landed next to him and Naruto swore that if the bastard ran off into the woods he would chase after him and inflict some serious pain. “I give you the bells, you release the Senju. That’s the deal, right?” And then the bells were flying towards the jounin and Sakura was being shoved forward and Naruto breathed for the first time in what felt like forever.  


“You are such an idiot, Uchiha! I told you, it was just another test. You and Uzumaki could have still passed!”  


“Are you serious, Sakura-chan! This Cyclops-bastard is crazy!”  


“You’re the idiot, Senju. I know that you’re pretty worthless, but do you seriously equivalate your life to nothing more than two pieces of jingling metal?”  


Whatever Sakura had been about to reply with was cut off when the pressure in the air increased and the jounin’s killing intent doubled. Naruto was going to die and his teammates were going to die and the silver haired man who had been holding one of them hostage not even a full minute before really was a devil in disguise. Nobody was ever going to find their bodies.  


“You three should know,” Naruto was never going to become the Hokage because their not-so-much-anymore jounin sensei was going to kill him. “You guys,” if it was a quick death, it would be okay, right? “Pass!”  


What?

oOo

When Kakashi walked through the large wooden doors of the Hokage’s office, he was met with a series of groans.  


“That’s who we’ve been waiting for, Hokage-sama? You could have at least warned us.” Whined a newly promoted jounin whose name was wholly unimportant to Kakashi.  


“A ninja must always expect the unexpected, jounin-kohai. Isn’t that right, Sandaime-sama?” Kakashi rarely ever had the need or the want to throw around his rank but sometimes… Well, sometimes there were annoying little shits that needed to be reminded that the only one in the room who currently outranked Kakashi himself was the Hokage. The not so subtle reminder quieted the rest of the room.  


“Ah, Kakashi-kun, now that you’ve arrived let’s get started, shall we?” The Professor definitely hadn’t not noticed the power play in the room but if he wasn’t going to say anything, then Kakashi was just going to assume that he had saved the Hokage the trouble of speaking himself.  


“Asuma-kun, let’s start with you.”  


“I, Asuma Sarutobi, formally accept jounin responsibility of the members of Genin Squad Ten, consisting of Shikamaru Nara, Choji Akimichi, and Ino Yamanaka.” Really, this whole process was too formal for Kakashi’s liking. He flipped forward in his book until he located the page he had been forced to abandon during the genins’ attack. Kakashi suspected that if even half of the jounin in the room knew about the Sandaime’s personal stash of similar orange-covered books, he wouldn’t be receiving nearly as many affronted looks as he was now. Really, it was their loss.  


The words weren’t registering but Kakashi kept his nose buried within the pages of the book: there was no need for everyone else in the room to be savvy about the internal turmoil he was suffering through. So long as he flipped a page every once and a while, maybe let out a muffled giggle here and there, everyone could go on assuming everything was right in the world.  


The night before he had been determined to carry out the bell test for Team Seven exactly as he had for every other genin team that had been thrust upon him but when he had arrived at the training grounds, had seen the personifications of his greatest failures standing right in front of him, something inside of Kakashi had shifted. He could have brushed it off or buried it down so deep that he would have to intentionally go digging inside of himself to find it again. For crying out loud, he was the Kakashi Hatake, the prodigal son, the genius, the Copy-nin, the epitome of ‘shinobi’ and as all those things he had learned to ignore those twinges and shifts, had learned to close the door on his conscious. But, staring down at those three brats, Kakashi hadn’t wanted to: the door that he could so easily barricade was cracked open and Kakashi couldn’t bring himself to slam it shut, couldn’t bring himself to just simply ignore their efforts as easily as he had all the others.  


The Hokage had moved on from Asuma and was currently drilling another shinobi about what further training the jounin’s failed genin could benefit from. Kakashi turned a page.  


Once upon a time, sitting at a dinner table in a kitchen that smelled of Uzushiogakure cuisine, surrounded by the rumbling chuckles of his sensei and the murmured teasing’s of a red-headed kunoichi, Kakashi had learned to express himself outside of a battlefield. He had learned to use his words instead of his fists, had learned to think with his emotions instead of the calculated statistics and risk factors, but then all of that had been ripped away and while Kakashi still remembered the lessons, he had forgotten how to utilize them. Which was his only excuse, really, for why he had been so brutal during the bell test.  


Well, he backtracked, not his only excuse.  


The files he had received for each of his genin students had been equally lacking and over-exaggerated, showing the clear favoritism and disdain of the Academy instructors. Kakashi had expected the derogatory marks that had been scribbled in the side-notes for one Naruto Uzumaki despite the village-wide gag order. The instructors may not have been able to outright ostracize the Uzumaki heir, but many of them were still recovering from the physically and mentally crippling attack of the Kyuubi, and so it was reasonable to assume that some of them would throw their weight around and rebel where the jinchuriki was involved. Naruto’s own reputation as prankster certainly hadn’t helped in that regard.  


Even though outright challenging a superior with little to no preparation was a stupid move, Kakashi had been slightly relieved when the blonde had remained in that clearing when the other two had fled. Engaging with Naruto, who looked so much like Minato-sensei that it filled Kakashi’s guts with heavy stones of guilt, was something that Kakashi had been dreading since he had found out just who his new students were going to be. It had been made easier as soon as it had become clear that he wouldn’t be forced to hunt the genin down.  


The young boy’s taijutsu was abysmal, a fact that had been noted repeatedly in the files, but what the Academy instructors had failed to mention was the fact that the brat had true talent when it came to the art of traps. Because of the classroom incident, Kakashi had known that one of the genin was advanced in that area but he had just assumed that it had been Sasuke. A mistake on Kakashi’s part as he had been forced to exert effort – minimal at best but he was a jounin – to avoid the swarm of clones that worked in almost perfect synchrony to heard him towards a trio of traps that surely would have disabled him had he been a low-ranking chunin.  


“Kurenai Yuhi, please step forward.” Kakashi turned another page.  


Where Naruto’s file had been lacking, Sasuke’s had been almost bursting at the seams with praise and recommendations. Where the Academy instructors had shunned Naruto for his jinchuriki status, they had elevated Sasuke to sit on the pedestal of ‘Last Heir of the Uchiha’. Kakashi had been expecting a teacher’s pet but what he had gotten, instead, was a peculiar mix of the two Uchiha that Kakashi had known best: one who had sacrificed himself for his teammates and the other who had become a clan-murderer. Sasuke was talented compared to most his peers but he was not the genius that Itachi was and while Sasuke received the recognition of his Academy instructors, Kakashi could tell that the boy yearned for more. Just like Obito.  


And weren’t those two terrible sides of a coin to be compared to? Because Kakashi had seen it land both ways and neither had resulted in anything good.  


The straw that had figuratively broke Kakashi’s back had been Sakura Senju. In parts, he was both more and less sympathetic towards the kunoichi than he was either of the boys.  


Nawaki Senju, at the meager age of twelve, had fled the village eight years before Kakashi had even been born and while Kakashi had certainly interacted with Tsunade Senju on several occasions, the two of them had never developed a relationship outside the boundaries of ‘medic’ and ‘patient’. Unlike with the boys, Kakashi had no personal connection to Sakura Senju at all, yet it was with her that he shared a similar background. Both of them had come into this world at the cost of their mothers’ lives, both of them were the offspring of notorious shinobi, both of them had paid in their own ways for the sins of their fathers’. Kakashi had seen a younger version of himself superimposed over the young kunoichi and he had felt obligated to… help?  


“Satoshi Saito, please step forward.”  


Finding a spot outside of the range of Sakura’s chakra net where he could eavesdrop while the genin plotted had been easy and Kakashi had been impressed at how quickly they had managed to construct a feasible plan. He had already made the decision to discard whatever information had been included in all three of the files so he hadn’t been terribly surprised when Naruto and Sasuke had both mentioned techniques that fell way outside of the range of the standard Academy curriculum.  


Had all three of them stuck with the plan Kakashi would have continued to play along but, as he had suspected, their obsession over who would ‘pass’ the test was their downfall. Kakashi had reacted the way he had to Sasuke’s ‘betrayal’ because one; the brats had all eaten breakfast and therefore had successfully rendered his ‘backup test’ completely ineffective and two; they had been so close and Kakashi had always found fear to be the most effective teacher.  


He hadn’t been disappointed a second time.  


“Kakashi-kun, please step forward.”  


“Ah, yes.” Whispers broke out amongst the adults in the room and Kakashi had to wonder if they remembered that everyone present was a highly-trained shinobi and that there really was no hope of getting away with whispering behind people’s backs.  


“I bet you he failed them.”  


“He always does.”  


“Did you see the genin that had been slotted for that team?”  


Kakashi remained silent and continued to ‘read’. If the men and women currently gossiping around him were brothers and sisters in arms, then he was nothing more than the sometimes-despised eldest sibling and they needed a father’s discipline at this moment.  


“Silence!” Of course, the Hokage never needed to raise his voice in order to achieve the attention he demanded, a healthy dose of killing intent and a minor elemental jutsu that altered the pressure in the air was enough. Kakashi, personally, loved that technique. He wasn’t quite sure if his genin had calmed down enough to admire it as the gem that it was.  


“Kakashi-kun, please.”  


“Oh. They all passed, of course.”


	6. Chapter 6

Kakashi wasn’t quite sure why, exactly, he had shown up on time to greet his genin at the training grounds. Other than the fact that he had basically insured, with a flippant announcement, that every curious eye in the village would be turned towards his team. There were a lot of curious eyes to be found within the walls of a village filled with shinobi and Kakashi wasn’t going to take the chance that a select few owners of said eyes wouldn’t try anything. Especially considering just who and what his genin happened to be. The Sandaime had twisted sense of humor, throwing those three together and then assigning them to him, of all people.  


The kids now standing in front of him, gawking, carried the weight of some very heavy names on their shoulders and people would be expecting things from them whether they were ready or not. Kakashi might have unintentionally drawn the eyes but the Sandaime was the man responsible for making this team something worth being noticed in the first place. And now it was Kakashi’s job to prepare these wet-behind-the-ears, eager, prideful, talented children to not only fill the footsteps that their ancestors had left behind, but to completely dwarf them. Because people always expected the next generation to be better than the previous ones and he just wasn’t sure how he was going to pull off training these brats to the point where they surpassed legends. Minato-sensei could have done it, sure, but Kakashi was not the Yondaime: he didn’t know how to be.  


“You’re on time…” Kakashi wasn’t sure if Sasuke was asking a question or making a statement, but the confusion on his face was amusing either way.  


“Well, you see, the batteries on my alarm clock are actually dying and therefore the machine itself was sort of on the fritz. Imagine my surprise when it actually woke me up when it was supposed to this morning.”  


“You’re making excuses for actually being on time?” Sakura’s confusion was just as enjoyable as Sasuke’s.  


“Wait just a minute, Kaka-sensei. Are ya saying that your alarm usually goes off late?” Ah, now he had all three of them looking at him like he was insane. How cute. Kakashi resisted the urge, just barely, to lift his hitai-ate and copy the scene in front of him. Obito would enjoy it, he knew.  


“Oh yes, most definitely.” But it was time to move on and Kakashi decided to slide his book, carefully, into his hip-pouch. He didn’t miss the way all three of them watched him do this with various expressions of curiosity, disappointment, and mild amazement. “Well now, my cute little genin, the plans I had originally made for today involved completely evaluating your various levels of taijutsu. I regret to say that after speaking to Masaki-san this morning that those plans have changed.”  


When Kakashi had wondered his way into the hospital this morning he had been met with the disapproving look of a medic who had informed him, in quite detail, about how two of his students had been admitted for an overnight watch: Sakura because of recent signs of chakra exhaustion and Naruto because it was proper concussion protocol. Both had mysteriously disappeared from their respective rooms between shift-change and Masaki-san had been in the process of drafting a missive when Kakashi had shown up.  


“Uh, who’s this Masaki person you’re taking ‘bout, sensei?” He noted that his other two students were just as unaware as Naruto and was slightly disappointed. Kakashi didn’t want to turn them into paranoid little shits, necessarily, but – well.  


Well. Not actually deeming it necessary to at least learn the name of the medic who was treating you was a mistake that could get them all killed in the future. And that was only if the enemy didn’t drug them, capture them, torture them, and extract their DNA. Even then, they would probably come out of it all dead. He would have to find a way to incorporate situational awareness outside of battle into their training.  


“Mah, the medic that treated you last night, of course!” Naruto and Sakura flinched at his too happy tone. Good.  


“So, what are we going to learn instead?” Hm. The Uchiha was an arrogant brat.  


“How nice of you to ask, Sasuke-kun. Today my cute little genin are going to learn how to suffer through the consequences of brushing off a medic’s orders. To the hospital, all three of you. Ah, ah, Sasuke-kun. No trying to kill your teammates: you’ve missed out on your last two scheduled check-ups. If all three of you get clean bills of health, we’ll swing by the mission desk after lunch and pick up your first D-rank.”  


“Fine. But no ramen, Uzumaki!”  


“But-but-but! Sakura-chan! We didn’t have ramen yesterday, why can’t we have it today?”  


“Because, dead-last, you’re the only one who likes it. And Senju probably doesn’t want to show her face in that ramen stand after what happened last time.”  


“Shut up, Uchiha! That stool was old.”  


“Sakura-chan, old or not, ya broke it by sitting on it.”  


Just how many stories did his cute little genin have? And was that a casual mention of the destruction of property? Kakashi would have to start keeping a better eye on the three of them, seeing as how he was technically responsible for them.

oOo  


“Sasuke-kun!” They had barely made it through the doors of one of the Akimichi’s barbeque restaurants when the squeal had rung out and then that bastard shoved Naruto forward and he was enveloped by a pair of soft, warm arms. Which was weird because Naruto was sure that Ino kind of hated his guts. Not a surprise, really, considering most people did, but still. 

She started to do this weird thing where she rubbed her face against the front of his jumpsuit and Naruto admitted that it didn’t feel bad, necessarily, but the girls perfume was synthetically sweet and it was hanging like a cloud around him and he wasn’t quite sure how much more of the burn his nose could take. He also wasn’t quite sure where to put his hands so he could shove her off without accidentally touching something that he shouldn’t so he was pretty much stuck until somebody did something to help him… 

Considering who his teammates were, Naruto wasn’t expecting any kind of rescue anytime soon. 

“Um. Sorry. But could ya maybe let me go now?” Well, if he wasn’t going to get any help from the two who he could hear starting to snicker behind him or his sensei, who appeared to be oblivious to it all, Naruto would have to take it into his own hands. Without using his hands. 

“Naruto!” The girl screeched before untangling herself from him and raising her hand. The distance between them hadn’t lessened the effect of the perfume and now his eyelids felt like sandpaper and he was preparing himself for the sting of an open palm across his face when Sakura was just there. 

“Yamanaka-san, I would appreciate it if you ceased this attack on my teammate. He can’t afford to lose any more brain cells, see, and so sustaining unnecessary blows to the head should be avoided at all costs. Medics orders.” 

“Thanks, Sakura-chan.” 

“She was insulting you, dead-last.” 

“I know that, Sasuke-bastard. Because Sakura-chan is mean, but she still saved me from one of your stupid fangirls. Believe it.” It was true. Sakura could be extremely mean, mean in a way that made Naruto want to treat her like the bastard and beat her down a couple of notches, but she wasn’t always like that. 

“Oi! Don’t be so troublesome, Ino. At least let them in through the door. Troublesome women.” Shikamaru was sitting towards the back of the restaurant, sharing a large round table with several of their classmates. Kiba and Choji (along with Shikamaru) were the only ones that Naruto had really spent any time with while at the Academy but he recognized Shino and Hinata. 

Huh. It looked as if two other teams had decided to eat lunch here as well and Naruto had to wonder if it really was a coincidence as Kaka-sensei strolled past him to greet the two jounin who were sitting at a table directly across from the genin. 

“Sasuke-kun! Why don’t you eat lunch with us?” Naruto didn’t miss the fact that Ino hadn’t extended the invitation to include him or his female teammate. That was fine, really, he hadn’t been expecting anything more and if he didn’t have to sit at the table with the fellow blond then he wouldn’t have to smell her. At this point he was sure that the damage had already been done but he was still hoping that his leaking face would return to normal as soon as he returned to fresh air. 

“Sakura! Naruto! Come join us!” Kiba barked and Akamaru let out a small woof in agreement. Well, if he was sitting as far away from Ino as he could get, it wouldn’t be too terrible. Kiba had helped Naruto pull off some epic pranks while in the Academy and Akamaru was the only dog that had never tried to run away from him. It had been a while since Naruto had spent any time with his friends. “Here,” Kiba shoved a piece of cloth into Naruto’s hand after he had sunk into one of the cushions around the table, “it helps with the perfume, man. That kind of fabric is manufactured by one of my uncles for people like us trackers. Just hold it up to your nose when it gets to be too much and breath through it a couple of times.” 

“Really? Thanks, dog breath!” Man, oh man, Kiba was a life saver. Naruto did as instructed and it was amazing because even when Ino passed by him, dragging the bastard by the arm, he didn’t smell anything. Served the bastard right to be stuck with that on the other side of the table. And then, because his dark-haired teammate looked miserable as it was, Naruto called out, “oi! Ino, I wouldn’t get too close to Sasuke-bastard, ya know. Me and Sakura just found out that one of his ancestors was Basabasa. Believe it!” 

“Shut up, loser! What would a dead-last like you and a traitor’s bastard like the Senju know about Sasuke-kun anyways!” And well, that made Naruto kind of angry because what did she think she knew about any of them? She was the one who had been snuggling up against him not moments before because she hadn’t noticed that he wasn’t Sasuke. 

“Watch it, Yamanaka! Sakura ain’t done nothing to you to deserve that!” And then Naruto’s tattooed friend was turning around and yanking his teammate forward and Naruto wasn’t quite sure how, exactly, Kiba got away with that because he was pretty sure that if anybody else had tried it Sakura would have ripped their arm off. “Here ya go, Sakura. Ya can sit right here next to Naruto.” More surprisingly, the pink-haired girl sunk into the recently vacated spot without argument and Naruto noticed the blush on dog-breaths face when he took up post on the other side. 

So that was it, was it? 

oOo  


“Ole’ dog breath likes ya, Sakura-chan.” She swore that if Naruto would have spoken any louder, the entire village would have heard him. 

“Shut up, Uzumaki. It’s not like that!” And it wasn’t. The Inuzuka probably just felt like he owed her for putting money on his fight. That’s why his mother had let her borrow the scroll in the first place, wasn’t it? 

“What! Sakura-chan, are you sayin’ that you didn’t notice the way he was looking at ya?” What was her obnoxious teammate even talking about? She had spent the entire lunch discussing the basics of the taijutsu scroll with the dog-nin and their conversation had been the perfect excuse to avoid interacting with anybody at the table. Nothing more. And he certainly hadn’t been looking-looking at her. 

“She’s almost as oblivious as you are, dead-last.” Oh no. Now the Uchiha had joined in. He did have a point though. About Uzumaki being oblivious, that was. 

“What’re you talking about, Sasuke-bastard?” 

“What he’s saying, Uzumaki, is that Hyuga-san blushed every time you said something.” 

“And it wasn’t because she was embarrassed for you, dead-last.” 

“And,” Sakura tacked on because Naruto was looking between both of them like they were crazy,” she almost fainted when you handed her that sweet sauce.” The whole thing had been almost comical. 

“What’re the two of you on about right now?” 

“Hinata Hyuga obviously has a crush on you, Uzumaki.” 

“Huh. I thought she just had some sort of weird skin condition, ya know? And Kiba has a crush on you, mean-y Sakura-chan. And Ino most definitely wants to have Sasuke-bastards fire-breathing babies. So there.” 

“Hn.” 

“My oh my. Are my cute little genin talking about making babies already. You three do know that you need to reach puberty before that can happen, right?” Sakura felt the heat rise to her cheeks and knew that her blush was just as glaringly obvious as her teammates’. And had she just imagined it or had their teacher genuinely sounded curious when he had asked that question? She was going to kill all of them, even the jounin. She knew the general vicinity that the boys slept in, she’d only have to hunt down the specific rooms and how hard could that be, but she would have to do recon on Kakashi-sensei. Attacking him in his sleep would be slightly less suicidal than doing so while he was awake but she was now motivated to at least try it. 

When they walked through the doors of the room identified as ‘Mission Assignment’ Sakura recognized the chunin with bandages wrapped around his face behind the desk, that was now looking at them with an evil glint in his eyes, as the same chunin that the Uchiha had cut in front of when they had filed their incident reports the day before. Oh joy. 

By the way that the chunin was now openly snickering and rubbing his hands together Sakura suspected that the three of them were about to be subjected to some sort of revenge against Uchiha’s rude behavior. And wasn’t that just great. 

“Mou, Kotetsu, my cute little genin are here to receive their first D-rank.” 

“Is that right, Kakashi-senpai? I think I have just the mission.” 

oOo  


Sasuke was completely disgusted. How could a person live in such filth? He was currently standing atop a pile of rotting trash, stacked so high that he actually had to duck his head so as not to scrape it against the ceiling, with his teammates and surveying what should have been a mud room but resembled more of a landfill. 

"This is all your fault, Uchiha." How was this his fault? 

"Sakura-chan is right, Sasuke-bastard. If ya wouldn'ta been so rude when we were turnin' in those incident reports then maybe that chunin woulda given us somethin' cool." The dead-last was holding a curious looking cloth up to his nose and Sasuke wanted to punch him. If those two hadn't been acting like such idiots then he wouldn't have had to cut in line in the first place. He was in the process of turning around in order to enlighten them with this fact when the shift of his weight caused an avalanche of newspapers, clothes, and stuffed trash bags to roll out of the opened door and onto the lawn. 

"Alright then, kiddies." The Cyclops-bastard had refused to step foot into the mess, claiming that he was just "too old" and "too tall" to subject himself to the kind of contortionism it would take in order for him to do so, and was now calling to them from outside. "Your mission is to clean up all three floors! Better get started if you hope to finish anytime soon." Did he have to sound so damned happy all of the time? 

Their client was, apparently, a relapsed recovering hoarder of the worst kind. Sasuke, personally, thought that at this point it made much more sense to just light it all on fire and watch it burn. Their client wouldn't have an issue with cramming filth in his living space if he had no living space, now would he? One set of hand-seals later and whoosh. Problem solved. 

"Dead-last." 

"Whaddya want, bastard?" 

"Summon up some of those annoying clones and make them be useful." 

"Ah, ah, ah. I don't think so, Sasuke-kun. You three worked so hard in order to receive this mission. Let's not throw all of that hard work away, shall we? No clones. Now. Snap, snap." Sasuke was going to kill them. All of them. He could probably con the dead-last and the Senju into helping him dispose of their teacher, judging by the looks on their faces it wouldn't take much convincing, and then he could take care of them. He could write it off as an awful training tragedy, he was sure of it. 

"There better not be anything living in there." 

"Senju, we could be standing on top of a horse right now and not even know it." 

"We could be standin' 'top of a whole herd of horses right now 'an not even know it. Believe it." 

"Hn." And then they got to work. 

There were two civilians and their wagons who had been hired by the city to haul the trash away and several hours blurred with the action of bagging up the contents of the house and loading the wagons up. The wagon drivers worked in a rotation so Sasuke and his team always had somewhere to deposit the reeking fruits of their labor and Sasuke wondered, idly, who was in charge of helping them unload the wagons when they got to wherever they were going. Hopefully it was the Yamanaka's team. That girl was beyond annoying. More so than his two teammates, and that was saying something. 

They had all noticed the water spot that seemed to loom over the center of the room like an occasionally leaking eye and Sasuke had been extra careful when he had been bagging up the trash in that general vicinity because he figured that he had already reached his quota of collapsing buildings for the week, thank you very much. When they reached the stairs leading up to the second floor, Sasuke realized the true extent of the water damage. 

"This stuff is all soaked an' nasty an' I don't wanna touch it!" The dead-last said over a gag and Sasuke didn't know if it was because the newspaper the blond had just picked up was slimy and moldy or because everything in that area smelled like ammonia. 

"None of us want to, Uzumaki, but how are we supposed to actually clean it out if we don't." They had inquired about gloves about fifteen minutes into the mission and Kakashi had given them a shrug and a shake of the head in response so the three of them had been working with trash-bags over their hands that were secured to their upper arms with bandages. Sasuke had to agree with them though: he still didn't want to touch any of it. 

"There's probably a broken pipe or a running faucet upstairs. We won't be able to shut it off until we clean it out. Come on, morons." It was when they reached the landing of the second floor that it happened. 

Sasuke and the dead-last had scrabbled to the top of the mountain of trash, trying to see if they could locate a bathroom so they could check for running water, and the orange menace slipped on a pile of wet plastic and grabbed Sasuke's ankle and then they were both sliding forwards. They landed on top of a pile of trash that exploded with the extra weight and Sasuke was completely covered in things that he didn't want to think about. He could hear the Senju laughing at them from over by the stairs and, as soon as he managed to stand up and regain his balance, he was going rub her face in this mess and then he was going strangle the dead-last. Before he got a chance to do either of these things, the floor completely gave way and Sasuke couldn't even scrabble away because everything he grabbed at just fell forward and then he was falling and the dead-last was screaming and things were hissing and leaping away. 

He landed on the first floor awkwardly, his ankle gave a strange twinge, the Uzumaki yelped, and everything that had been on the second floor dumped on him. He dug through more things that he did not want to think about and when he finally escaped the chaos he saw both of his teammates were crouched at the edge of the pile, seemingly looking for him. 

"What happened to you, Senju?" The girl's face was completely covered in bleeding welts. At one point she must have ripped the bags that served as gloves off: there were stretched pieces of plastic hanging from the bandages that had secured them, and her hands were in just as bad of shape as her face. 

"Cats, Uchiha. An entire flippin' herd of cats decided that I was in the way when they were trying to escape the mess that you two caused!" 

"I dunno if a group'a cats are called a herd, Sakura-chan." The dead-last was cradling his hand to his chest and a couple of his fingers looked crooked. Sasuke was going to break the rest of them because it was that idiot's fault that this had happened, damnit! Except he was pretty sure that he had twisted his ankle and what kind of a shinobi was he if he had let that happen. It was definitely swelling up; he could feel the pressure. 

"Mah. My second impression of you three is: you are all completely hopeless." And then the jounin was swinging Sasuke over his shoulder and Sasuke didn't need to be carried so he took extra pleasure in smearing whatever mess was on him into the fabric of the jounin vest. Discreetly, of course. "I'm sending you the dry cleaning bill, Sasuke-kun. You two, follow me." 

"Where are we goin', Kaka-sensei." 

"To the hospital, of course." 

oOo  


His students smelt absolutely awful if he were to go by the way the nurses at the front desk were covering their noses and trying their best not to gag. Once again he thanked the fact that his mask was made out of the same material that the Inuzuka heir had given to Naruto earlier that day. 

"Hatake-san, why am I not surprised that your students are back?" 

"Ah, Masaki-chan you look just as radiant this afternoon as you did this morning!" Flattery, like bribery, was a tool that was best used often. 

"Your silver-tongued ways will not work on me, Hatake-san." She said sternly before she motioned for them to follow her back into an examination room. 

"But Masaki-chan! We weren't training, promise. It was a mission, you see. Well, no matter, I'll let the brats give you all of the juicy details." He made sure that when he deposited his student on the plastic chair in the room that Sasuke made an extra squelch-y noise. Sometimes he was just too funny. Because he was in such good humor, he made sure he pulled the medic aside before he left, and requested a favor. It was a pity that he wouldn't be around to witness his cute little genin's reactions but it was a hospital and he could already feel his skin crawling. No matter. He was sure that he would hear all about it the next morning and by that time his students should still be righteously mortified. 

"Alright, kiddies! I'll go give our report to the Hokage. Make sure you're all at the training grounds tomorrow at the same time and heal fast!" He ducked out of the door before either of his students or Masaki-san could throw something at him. Ah. The power.


End file.
